Hosting Parties and Limiting Calories - as part of the nutrition series by GeoBeats.

I love it when I am hosting the holiday party at my house because then I have more control, and you can too. For example, you can make sure that you serve plenty of vegetables with a light dip. Offer a spread of fresh fruit. People love strawberries and pineapple this time of year. You could have a little dark chocolate dip as a treat. Think too, about modifying your favorite recipes to keep the calories, maybe the sugar and the fat, a little bit lower. For example, in that vegetable dip, you could use non-fat yogurt in place of half the mayonnaise. When you make ginger snap cookies, you can replace half of the flower with whole wheat flower, and usually in sugary cookie recipes you can cut the sugar by at least a third and still have a very sweet treat.

When you are hosting your parties feel free to modify the recipes. Other things: You know you are going to have a big calorie savings for you and the guests if you serve things like a shrimp cocktail or crab light dip than having burger sliders with cheese on them. As I am talking about cheese, you know, cheese tends to be a very high fat food, high in saturated fat and cholesterol. So, limit the amount of cheese that you serve, but go with the fish, go with the fresh fruits, fresh vegetables and desserts that you have modified a little bit to keep them healthier. Think about an alcohol punch that has a lot of soda water in it and fruit juice with just a touch of champagne or white wine in it.