Highlights from Thanksgiving, Healthy Side Dishes, and Healthy Holiday Eating Tips
Hi guys! Hope you had a great weekend! Instead of doing a full Thanksgiving recap
(it was pretty much the same as last year, lol), see?! 
Turkey
I am instead going to do something different and share some highlights with you and how they relate to this awesome article (see below) I was sent about eating healthy at Thanksgiving. Now even though this article was written for Thanksgiving (and I’m posting it after the fact - my fault – oops!), these healthy side dishes would taste absolutely amazing with any meal, and the healthy eating tips can be just as easily applied to just about any other holiday gathering you host or attend! Sounds cool, right?! Good! Here’s the article:
Easy, Healthy Thanksgiving Side Dishes
by Kathy Hester
Thanksgiving can be a time where almost everything is the opposite of healthy. Granted, turkey is good for you – that is as long as you don’t deep fry it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about indulging. I think if you indulge a little all during the year, you won’t feel the need to put yourself in a food coma during the holidays. There’s nothing worse than feeling so full that you have to lie down and wait it out.
It can be hard to avoid overeating on Thanksgiving of all days. Depending if you’re celebrating at your house or someone else’s, you’ll have more or less control of the dinner. At your house you can cook as many side dishes as you want. If you’re going to a friend’s house or to eat with relatives, it’s still appropriate to offer to bring a dish or two. Thanksgiving is one of the hardest days to eat healthy veggies. It’s the green bean casserole, sweet potatoes drowned in brown sugar and butter, and real cream in the creamed corn, in addition to your families’ favorites. I’m not suggesting that you give up your yearly taste of Aunt Ida’s casserole, but be mindful of the choices you make. Start with a small portion of your favorites, and add to it with salad or less altered vegetables.
I love having a big bowl of steamed veggies on the table. That way I can eat a little bit of the heavier dishes, and fill up on something good for me too. Everyone loves a fresh spinach salad, just use a light balsamic dressing instead of the traditional hot bacon to keep it on track. If you have a family of picky eaters, bring salad fixings in smaller bowls with dressings on the side. When everyone is going through the buffet, they will be able to pick and choose what they want.
Another way to have a lighter Thanksgiving is to make your old favorites healthier. Just by simply choosing low fat milk instead of half and half, or using less butter, or use olive oil in place of the butter. You may find yourself not missing the extra fat. Both of these ideas work great in mashed potatoes, or in mashed sweet potatoes. Try using unsweetened soy or almond milk if you’re feeling bold. Mash some sweet potatoes with a little orange juice, some cinnamon, cloves, even a few dried cranberries if you want. You could also add some low fat sour cream to your regular mashed potatoes. My favorite mashed potatoes have nothing more than the water they were cooked in and goat cheese.
You are only limited by your imagination. Cook some baby carrots in water, and then toss with a little vodka and fresh dill. It’s a beautiful dish, especially when I serve it on my Noritake Colorwave Blue accent plates. Curried cauliflower also makes a pretty side dish, but you can make the veggies as basic as you want. No one will turn their nose up at a steamed medley of cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and brightly colored peppers.
You may be helping yourself have a healthier Thanksgiving, but you are also giving everyone else a chance at one too. Remember the point of the holiday is to give thanks and spend time enjoying family and friends.
Great article, right?! Now, I do have to admit that Thanksgiving is usually one of the healthiest holiday gatherings that we host, but I think a lot of it is because we actually already use some of the tips mentioned in the article. Cool, huh?!
- Now, we actually do this the opposite way. When we host Thanksgiving, my mom will make very healthy side dishes, such as butternut squash, green beans, and baked potatoes,
while someone else might make something a little more traditional, such as sweet potato casserole.
- The other thing I think is great about bringing a side dish or two (and/or even a main dish, depending on the circumstances), is that if you are say, vegetarian or vegan, or have any kind of dietary restrictions, or have a food allergy- which you should definitely let your host/hostess know about beforehand!, then you can make the dish(es) suited to your specific needs.
2.) Think outside the box
- The sweet potato casserole is probably the only real traditional, indulgent food that we have, as everything else is much more simple and plain. For example, instead of green bean casserole (which I’ve actually never even had before), my mom just makes this green bean dish, which is absolutely delicious!
Green Beans
It’s just cooked green beans tossed with a light dressing, which I think is basically just made of apple cider vinegar and Dijon mustard (not sure, though, I’ll get the recipe/recipe link from my mom and post it in the comments). It’s very light and tastes fantastic! Everyone love it! (And here’s a tip: wait until you are ready to eat to toss the green beans with the dressing. Otherwise, it will get a bit discolored as it sits and won’t look as nice.)
Apple Pie
- My mom always makes apple pie but this year she cut down on the amount of sugar she put in. And you know what? I think it tasted even better that way!
So those are the tips we use for Thanksgiving. Pretty neat! We also use some of the tips around Christmas time, which is when we usually have heavier foods…
More Take Away Points - (I’m going to relate these to our Christmas gatherings)
4.) Have healthy foods, such as steamed veggies, or a salad, on the table to balance out heavier dishes.
- Usually my mom makes lasagna for Christmas, and even though she uses whole wheat noodles and low-fat cheeses, let’s face it – all that cheese can make the lasagna a very heavy dish! That’s why my mom will also make a big salad to balance things out.
Salad and lasagna
Okay, so that’s an old picture of a plate of leftovers so the salad is not that big. Normally for holiday gatherings my mom will make a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, and maybe some fruit and veggies. In any case, having a salad with a heavier food like lasagna helps you to get in more vitamins and nutrients and also helps to balance the meal.
5.) Be mindful of portion sizes.
- Okay, so in the above picture the lasagna is about the same size as the salad. If I had taken a smaller portion of lasagna, I could have either made a bigger salad or had a bigger variety of foods, such as lasagna with a slice of bread (maybe garlic bread!), some broccoli, and a piece of fruit.
So you can see how the tips in this article are very applicable not just to Thanksgiving, but to other holidays as well. It was neat to learn that we already use some of these tips – it must mean they are good ones
But the other great thing about this article? I learned a whole bunch of new ideas as well, such as:
New Ideas to Try
6.) Salad Buffet
- I love the idea of having salad fixing in smaller bowls so that people can pick and choose what they want! Not only is it fun to make your own meals, but each person can make the salad as light or as filling as he/she wants. It would be great to have bowls of different fruits, veggies, nuts, and cheeses. Then you could make a salad like this:
Salad: Lettuce, grapes, yellow bell pepper, pistachios, cheese
And I love the idea of having different dressings on the side. That’s always a good idea because everyone always seems to have their own favorite salad dressing!
7.) New Recipe Ideas!
- I never would have thought to have mashed sweet potatoes. What a great idea! And mashing them with orange juice sounds really good! I agree with the addition of cinnamon – I usually just have a plain sweet potato sprinkled with some cinnamon on top and it’s fantastic! Never had cloves with sweet potato, so that would be something different to try! And I love the suggestion of adding a few dried cranberries, because the sweetness of the sweet potatoes and the tart flavor of the cranberries would taste so good together!
- I would like to try the mashed potatoes made with water and goat cheese! I actually am not the biggest fan of mashed potatoes, but for some reason, that sounds fantastic to me! It must be the addition of the goat cheese that makes it sound so good, which is actually kind of funny since I’ve never even had goat cheese before! But it just sounds like it would be really good! I actually know someone that loves mashed potatoes and also loves goat cheese, so I should definitely make this for that person, and that way I can try a bite and see if I like it, too!
- Steamed medley of vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and brightly colored peppers) We usually have separate vegetable dishes, which are always yummy, but the steamed medley of vegetables would be nice to try as well! It would be a really easy way of making sure all the vegetables are done at the same time!
Other Fantastic Take Away Points
8.) A Healthier Thanksgiving for you may also equal a healthier Thanksgiving for someone else.
- At the end of the article it says, “You may be helping yourself have a healthier Thanksgiving, but you are also giving everyone else a chance at one too.” This is a great message because it shows you that your healthy eating habits can be beneficial to others as well!
9.) Be thankful for all you have and for friends and family.
- I love the very last line of the article, “Remember the point of the holiday is to give thanks and spend time enjoying family and friends.” Giving thanks and spending time with family and friends is definitely what it’s all about!
Thank you so much to Myriam for arranging for this article to be written, and thank you so much to Kathy Hester for writing such an awesome article!
(Oh, and for full disclosure, yes I used pictures from last Thanksgiving (they were just better than this year’s pictures, which were of the exact same foods!) and I also used a few pictures from old posts as well to illustrate some of the other points.)
December 8th, 2009 at 8:51 am
#8 and #9 are my favorites!
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Cool! They really are great messages/things to remember/keep in mind!
December 8th, 2009 at 11:03 am
those tips are great! thanks for sharing
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Glad you liked the article!
December 8th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Fantastic post!! And, you’ve provided some excellent tips. We have lasagna on Christmas day too, but my family doesn’t use anything low fat, or whole wheat! Bummer.
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That’s okay – there’s always next time!
December 8th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Awesome post!! I definitely tried to lighten things up by bringing some green beans cooked in chicken broth. I figured why not give an option besides the green bean casserole?? I don’t happen to even like GB casserole, so it was a great area for me to cut back in. But I did not cut back on the desserts!!
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Green beans cooked in chicken broth is a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
At Thanksgiving we pretty much only have apple pie and pumpkin pie. Other holidays we’ll have cheesecake, which is always from the bakery – so definitely no cutting back on desserts there!
December 8th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
It looks like a nice spread! Nice post!
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Thank you, and I’m glad you enjoyed the article!
December 8th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Great post! But I’m curious about the mashed potatoes with WATEr and goat cheese? the goat cheese sounds awesome, but wouldn’t water be bland? MAybe…broth?
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Hmmm….good point. But she did say in the article that it was one of her favorite things…so I guess it’s not. Hmmm…come to think of it, I usually eat baked potatoes plain – no butter or sour cream or anything, so I think maybe I would like the mashed potatoes with just the water? I’ve never had goat cheese before, but maybe the flavor would be strong enough that the potatoes wouldn’t be bland with just the water. Not sure, though. Making the mashed potatoes with broth sounds like it would be a good option if the flavor wasn’t enough with just the water and goat cheese. Thanks for the tip!
December 9th, 2009 at 10:51 am
That turkey looks awesome
Great tips!
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Hi Lindsay, thanks so much for stopping by! The turkey was really good! Glad you liked the article!