Guilt-Free Holiday Indulgence: Healthy Holiday Recipes w/ Britta Sather- Ep 136: Too Young To Be Old

Guilt-Free Holiday Indulgence: Healthy Holiday Recipes w/ Britta Sather- Ep 136: Too Young To Be Old

you are making a gravy out of cashews oh my God I love that how yes [Music] yes hi everyone this is Dian Gilman formerly known as the queen of jeans on QVC HSN but now the proud host of my podcast too young to be old you know holiday season is here unbelievable right and the first thing I think of is I hate turkey and the second thing I think of is oh my God I’m going to gain 10 pounds oh then January February what a drag trying to take it off so today we actually have tips from an incredible nutritionist brda sather tips for creating balance between healthy living and life’s delectible indulgences welcome BR thank you for having me Diane I’m excited well brida actually took time out of her busy career and life and created what I like to call an alternative holiday recipe book and you’ll be able to get that through a link that will supply to you at the end of the podcast but what I wanted to do was take alltime favorites and convert them from heart attack food to holistic healthy food and that is not easy to do but I will tell you what you will get to a point ladies in your life somewhere around 50 55 when your body is just not working the same anymore and you are not digesting things as easily you are indulging yourself and it’s really putting on the poundage so I took brda and said you know what let’s do some all-time favorites mac and cheese meatballs and gravy love obsessed with um but I’m not supposed to eat meat I’m not supposed to eat dairy so there we go with some cheeses I love cranberry sauce but I’m not going to eat that Jello-O thing out of a can I love pumpkin pie we’ve got a totally new take on that and apple pie which is more like apple crisp and there I have to say big yum oh my gosh love love love love love that so let’s start just talking about the holidays and navigating all those indulgent Foods I say after a certain age BR if you don’t put in your system key nutrients that support your health you will really start to see yourself lagging in energy digestion yeah give us your take on how through diet you can maintain Vitality at any age yeah absolutely and nutrition is so important for everything in our lives um we really need to focus on that nutrient Dent food um so what does that mean um the the foods that are more full of the macronutrients that you need the protein the fiber um vitamins and minerals so there’s really you know no such thing as good and bad food food is food is all fuel for your body um so we like to talk about you’re always foods and your sometimes Foods um so around the holidays we have a little extra of those sometimes foods and it’s important you know this is such a great time of year um enjoy the time with your family and and let go of some of that that guilts that you feel um and depriving yourself is probably just going to lead to overindulging um and overeating anyway so you can have some of those favorites um you know in small portions and and occasional and then put a little spin on your favorites to make them healthier and you won’t feel as weighted down um but still feel like you’re getting that th those treats okay so for a lot of us we want to be glutenfree or we should be I know I should I have inflammation in my joints and gluten it it’s it’s an almost obvious immediate result if I eat glut Rich pastries or breads which I love of course so one of the things I do love and I think is the ultimate comfort food is mac and cheese but you crafty girl switched it around and you actually found made it foundationally Butternut Squatch why and how and how do you get the flavor out of it we can’t you’ll be able to see our recipes afterwards but for now I’m simply telling you I ask brda for super healthy and doable alternative so how in the world did you make mac and cheese into a healthful main course I’d love to yeah oh absolutely I mean this is a a very common favorite of a comfort food for many people um and you know I live up here in the Midwest and we love our hot dishes oh yeah so getting that creamy warm feeling is what we’re going for and cheese we all know is full of saturated fat um a lot of times mac and cheese will have heavy cream the the things that just very calorie Rich um full of saturated fat that we need to minimize so if you’ve ever cooked with butternut squash and pated it it gets a really nice creamy texture um and and squash is full of nutrients it’s got fiber um vitamin A the beta carotene um vitamin C pacum so it’s very very nutrient dense um so it’s it’s a great option to incorporate into your diet but it really makes a nice substitute for for melted cheese and I’ll be honest I stole this recipe from my sister-in-law who is vegan and glutenfree and so she came around for the holidays and started making this butternut squash mac and cheese and we all fell in love with it so it’s kind of a holiday staple for us now but um even the kids love it which you know if you can fool them into thinking it’s mac and cheese then you’ve got a pretty good dish so yeah so what we’re doing is taking out the melted cheese and the cream um and we’re roasting you Cube the butternut squash you roast it and then you pet it you can add some almond milk or oat milk um to puree it together and then when you mix it you can use gluten-free noodles um you mix it together as in spices and it really a lot of times people can’t even tell that there’s n cheese in the dish um and even uh I made a butternut squash soup um the other day and my son thought it was you know cheese soup because it is very very similar texture and and almost taste so this is an easy swap for just a really a lot healthier option and and also I use um vegan cheese and they’ve really improved it I mean it gets to a point where it it you know the whole deal to me was the consistency when it melted and of course the star of the show in macaroni and cheese is the cheese but if you can go for vegan especially if you’re 50 55 or over it’s so so much easier to digest yes that it’s you’re right it doesn’t have that heaviness to it and I think when you’re younger and also at a time when we were more of an agrarian Nation so you were burning off calories out there day and night and chopping trees for wood and and you’re not burning off any of those calories now having a stable dish that is something you grew up with but now you are able to grow grow old with and grow Beyond with by making it glutenfree cheese free dairy free because I’m also lactose intolerant so they tell me um that is a a such a positive factor and what I always like to keep it simple brsh so would you use a food em multiplier or would you use a food processor here yeah so this one is probably easier to transfer the squash into a foodal sapphire um but when I make my butternut squash soup I just use a hand held the are so easy that’s yep yep that works great okay good so now we’re going to go on to something that can be done in a lot of ways but I was telling B before the show the podcast that um I was interviewed for mad and they asked me a really off-putting question which was if you could only have one dinner and it had to be the same every night of your life what would it be and I said oh easy spaghetti and meat boss no hands down just love it could eat it forever but I don’t want to eat red meat anymore every time I eat it I feel like like I just swallowed a block of cement and so as much as I love it and really love meatballs BR actually found a way to make meatballs and gravy and you could certainly turn around and put it with an Italian red sauce yep over a glutenfree pasta I particularly love cauliflower I can get fresh cauliflower pasta from my local market takes three minutes to make tastes authentic has a great quality to it really really holds its shape so here’s what I think is so brilliant about this it has a cashew gravy and it is lentils how do you do that and how do you hold the whole mixture together to make that perfect meatball oh I’m so excited to try this yes this really is delicious um so lentils are so versatile you um really can make them pick up the flavor of whatever you’re cooking and they’re also super nutrient dense so lentils have a lot of protein um plant-based protein which is can be challenging to get um fiber iron it’s a source of iron which is really important especially for young women for getting those energy levels um and a lot of different vitamins and minerals and lentils so um definitely lentils are a great staple food in a lot of dishes so these meatballs um they use lentils as the base um with a lot of different herbs and spices um a little flax seed yeast slakes um so all of these you just kind of mix together make them into the ball and they surprisingly hold together very well when they’re baked wow yes and they are absolutely delicious I can I can attest to this and I’m going to add ask you as just a partial cook not really I would love to be a real cook but I just don’t have the talent like I could never be a singer or a tap dancer okay I could never be a chef but I love to eat however there are a few things in here I’ve never heard of before so one of them is yeast flakes where do we get those yeah so I mean we actually sell these on Swanson oh fantastic yes so they’re like a nutritional yeast and they actually have kind of a Cheesy flavor to them um but again a lot nutrient more nutrient dens than that so um you can get them on swanson.com and I will be completely honest I do not follow recipes to a tea um I definitely play with the recipes like you take your personal twists on on these recipes and if there’s certain herbs that you like more of or or less of or you know not at all absolutely play with the recipes a little bit and that’s going to turn out just fine okay uh fla seeds I use in I try to use my everyday diet sometimes just sprinkle them on top of toast and butter um and really I I have had a very runaway train kind of diet at so many times in my life so I try to stay with in my lane and that’s why for me the first time I would try one of your recipes I would try it literally to your recipe and then afterwards say to myself you know what I need more of that or less of that but here’s the real deal do you find that you get that rich meatball taste from using lentils yeah so I’m a vegetarian I don’t eat any meat and so for me I think the lentils give such a great flavor that the to to an average person looking at the meatball they would probably feel like they’re still getting that that warm comfort of the meatball so that would be that’s my opinion on it um you might have some arguments from a few people but um I would say that it will fulfill your craving that is great because you know not only for Thanksgiving as an alternative to Turkey but for any holiday season you’re GNA have football games men want big hogies and big sandwiches so could you actually use these meatballs with some red sauce to make a meatball sandwich for the guys oh great yes absolutely you can make the little more Italian spin on them um add the red sauce and say give you the same feeling okay so here is where my brain has a difficult time wrapping around it you are making a gravy out of cashews oh my God I love that how yes yes so you you puree the cashews um and this is so great because nuts are so good for your body um the healthy fat the vitamin E the selenium um so if you can incorporate more of the nuts instead of what’s in real gravy which we won’t even get into um you’re going to get a lot more benefits out of it but this actually has such a delicious creamy texture um when you puree the the cashews with the herbs um it makes such a nice topping for these meatballs and would you put that in a food processor or would you use a you wouldn’t use a handheld that would be tough um y so like a a blender or food processor would work great okay and then and there are many dishes that could use a great gravy so it’s not only for the meatballs I could transfer this to other recipes too that call for a gravy and know you know every time and I’m a big fan of tick tock so there’s so many recipes on Tik Tock and they’re always the same heavy amounts of cheese heavy whipping cream cream milk and you’ve got a world of dairy and of course it’s going to taste good that’s almost like the coward’s way out of of a recipe is put in all this super rich stuff now one thing I also notice in your recipes is I don’t see a ton of butter here mhm talk to me about that yes so butter is a saturated fat it’s the the type that’s solid at room temperature um and saturated fat is what we want to avoid that’s the type of fat that sits in Our arteries um you know raises your cholesterol so we do minimize the use of butter um olive oil is a great substitute for butter and so you know a lot of recipes you just don’t need it um we’re kind of built to things that we do but you to try with at least cut the butter in half um when your recipes call for it even when I make cookies or baked goods um I’ll cut it down by half and they almost always turn out in a very similar similar way so just I appreciate having menus that cut down the probability that I’m going to be on Statin or high blood pressure medicines or you know I will say very very Qui quickly that um when I came out of chemotherapy and radiation I had I was just holding so much steroid water I gained 30 pounds during chemo and when I had to bring it all down I went to my GP and she said oh my God you’ve got you’re going to die of blood pressure high blood pressure and oh my God your cholesterol and we’re going on and on because during chemo it was easier for me to have an appetite for creamy Foods okay so she immediately wanted to put me on statins and I’m very uncomfortable around a lot of drugs and I said give me six months to change my diet and bring down both of those points blood pressure and cholesterol she said you’ll never do it it’s too high I mean you’re going to drop dead any minute PS I took all Dairy most saturated fats red meat out of my diet came back five months later blood pressure perfect cholesterol perfect and I’ll tell you what she was not happy she wanted she wanted to prescribe those drugs so people out there whether you’re cooking just for yourself and a mate cuz kids are gone or you’re cooking for family do the entire family a favor and make foods that do not work against your body and put you on a plethora of drugs but rather are a healing and a nutritional device to Better Health so now we’re going to get to something that just cracks me up I asked somebody once I was coming to their house for dinner Thanksgiving and I said you know what can I bring and da what what what kind of cranberries do you have and she looked at me like she said are you crazy jelly of course and I thought no not that thing from a can that looks like the blob which is one of my favorite horror movies out of the 50s so you actually have an absolutely delicious recipe for you want to call it fresh cranberry sauce it certainly isn’t jell it and for sure isn’t canned and I’ll tell you what I love that with leftover turkey leftover it squab or chicken it is such a delicious pequin side dish and you know I remember last year we went up into Vermont and bought all of this freshly bottled maple syrup and how delicious to use that rather than white sugar now are there any health benefits to using maple syrup as opposed to white sugar well in moderation so you know it is still a sugar um but it is it’s processed easier in your body and so so white sugar is going to spike your blood sugar faster than the maple syrup will so we do use waple syrup as a a healthier swap in a lot of recipes when you still need that sweetness um but we’re trying not to use the the white process sugar you know I don’t even have sugar in the house but awesome if I was going to it would definitely be brown sugar which brings me to my next discussion strangely enough BR and I are talking before the podcast and I’m talking about how for some reason I will order pumpkin pie but I’ll just eat the filling I don’t know why but and I of course I know why because the crust is not great for you and I have all the sensitivity to glutens but BR actually without us ever having that discussion gives a recipe for crustless pumpkin pie what led you to choose pumpkin pie to make without a crust and how interesting that I don’t eat it with a crust yes but there’s nothing healthy in the crust and so it’s refined sugar it’s U bleached flour it’s um butter sometimes Ward and you know it’s really there it’s there to hold hold the pie together when you scoop it out so this recipe uses individual um little ramkin dishes or you can use little casserole dishes or even muffin tins would work yeah so this is going to be the filling and really pumpkin pie pumpkin is very nutrient dense and so you know that puree canned pumpkin um is actually very beneficial so we don’t need to cut out the dessert you have to have the dessert I mean it’s the most important part yeah yep and so we add in that cinnamon um cut down on the sugar again um I almost always cut the sugar in half of what the recipe after for because really you’re going to get a lot of sweetness um even from that amount so you’re going to to make the pumpkin pie filling um in these dishes and you’ll you’ll still get the the feeling of the pumpkin pie and you know what top it with some Whi cream too and you’ll feel like you got the whole the whole pie so I I do want to ask you because I was a um a big lover of that fakey whipped cream like Cool Whip or something but when I look at the label on Cool Whip oh my God it’s all chemicals and so where do I get sugar-free whipped cream or D free that’s that is a challenge right it’s usually hydrogenated oils um to make that whipped cream so they do make um whipped cream with real real cream but they also have dairyfree um and even you know the sugar-free whipped cream is usually a lot of chemicals in it so you have to go into it knowing that yeah you know it’s it’s not a healthy food but if you’re using it to as a topping it’s it’s just for for topping because I love that balance of the of the almost Savory sweet spiciness of the of the pumpkin filling against the creamy sweetness of the whipped cream so okay so what we’re saying is it’s worth it go for it cuz we’re being healthy in one part of it and not so much in the other the last recipe is something I will I’m making it this weekend I swear which is a healthier apple pie dessert which is actually more like an apple crisp and here we go what is the Turning Point here we talked about using a Apple like Fuji which I think is so delicious or Granny Smith I think is also very tart where does your health come from in this is it the almond flour is it I’m just trying to put it together here and I love the idea of using honey um but what makes this healthier than a normal apple pie yes so healthier would be the key we we’re still talking about a dessert but um so we’re again we’re taking out the crust um and so you’re using those apples popping them less cinnamon using less sugar or even honey or Maple syp instead of the sugar and then we’re using oats so oats are a better option than the bleached flour which isn’t common in most of the crusts um even the toppings and so o are going to give you that fiber um it was less of a blood sugar Spike so the those SE swaps um I think you’ll still get that that warm cinnamony apple feel um with less of the refined carbohydrates I think that’s absolutely genius to use oats yeah and um is that going to be very similar to the oats I use for oatmeal yep yep you can use instant oats you can get gluten fre tastic okay well I think it could just be a much better holiday season for all of us because we’re going to be able to navigate so much of what trips us up and I can tell you as somebody who right after menopause I became a widow at the same time I ballooned up to 200 pounds Y and then I came back down again and then when I went into chemotherapy for breast cancer um I think that they put put so many steroids in your chemical mixture that you take in um for chemo to elevate your mood and elevate your appetite it Ultra elevated my appetite but it also had so much water retention to it so interestingly enough I came back on air Thanksgiving Day of 2018 and I was was surrounded now I hadn’t been able to eat any foods I wanted to eat for almost a year um they’re very careful about that and I came back it was like oh my God I can eat food again it is so much easier to maintain your weight through healthy eating then to gain weight and have to lose it and I want to say that and I think you might agree with me definitely as a nutritionist incorporating holistic practices in your food sources is so much better when you have a busy lifestyle and trust me I have the busiest lifestyle in history and I was cut into My Lifestyle by 90% for having the health issue of breast cancer you don’t want to feel overwhelmed by all the ingredients but looking at the ingredients in your holiday menu these are things paprika onion powder garlic powder oat milk II form of oat milk olive oil squash these are food sources that you’re going to have 3/4 of them in your closet your food closet already but what it’s going to do for you is it’s a new way to live and I’m still of that particular mindset that what you fuel your body with especially as you age becomes who you are how much you can cope where your energy level H is which is all about your purpose and what you wish to accomplish and I found in light and life okay but I just had my 79th birthday I can’t cheat anymore now a lot of people are going to say that at 58 or 68 I went on for a while but I know now and I’m very aware of it what I put in my body has to integrate and enhance my body functions not challenge them and fight them I I ask you this in conclusion what would you like to say about nutrients and how they support overall health PR yeah so it’s really you you kind of hit the nail on the head there with it’s about how we feel you know we definitely want to look good um and keep our weight down but it’s really about how you feel so when you’re seting yourselves those good nutrients you’re going to feel good and that’s going to allow you to enjoy enjoy the holiday season a lot more um by having these healthier auctions you’re doing your body a service so that you can spend more time with your family you can have the energy to do all of the holiday um Gatherings and festivities so it it’s really about how you feel um and so you know serving your body right is going to just improve your life how did you choose and get into a career as a nutritionist yeah that’s such a great question and so um my dad was a chiropractor and we grew up um with a natural health practice so supplements were a huge part of our life um you know I grew up in a big family in the Midwest and we lived in a small town and so we had homecooked meals every meal um and just really that Natural Health lifestyle um and so I was you know went to college and was so into science I love to learn about how what we put in our bodies what it did to our bodies um and so I actually work for a dietary supplement company um and I have worked in the natural Product Industry for over 15 years um because I feel so passionate about um you know Natural Health um supplements and and what nutrition can do for our body yeah and I just found out a terrible statistic which is uh for women over 65 85% of them are on mood enhancing drugs because they’re depressed and my belief is if you have a much healthier diet that you feel you’re in control of without those sugar spikes and those highs and lows and that manic kind of energy and then exhaustion in the afternoon I think you can also manage your life much better I know I’ve set huge goals for myself and have tremendous purpose as I go into my 80s about to write my third book my fourth book and then my fifth book and I can’t fool around I need food that gives me a good even steady blend of fiber energy through nutrients and quite frankly flavor because also as we age our taste buds get less sensitive so what we’ve done with these recipes or rather what BR has done is she’s given you broad flavors where if you’ve been raised on red meat all your life but you’re in a kind of medical protocol that says don’t eat red meat which was definitely my hospital for having any form of cancer or repelling cancer I can’t wait to make the meatballs with lentils and and then I bet you lentils become my best friend and that’s what I lean on for other recipes where it calls for red meat but you could substitute this look at it this way ladies you’re not going to gain as much way through the holidays so January and February are not going to be so indoors housebound but trying to starve yourself to death that’s impossible you’re going to have incredible conversation points at the Holiday table because people are going to be so impressed with your originality and if you have relatives around you that are aging and near and dear to you and it actually hurts your heart to see them eating destructive food you know my best friend um having an eye problem has gone through several eye surgeries and I said well what are you eating as in what do you to support your health and she said Cheetos Fritos frozen dinners canned case and I’m thinking no that is that is a suicide menu so I think we’ve got to try out all these recipes and we want to hear from all of you out there that have tried any of these recipes I I can’t even decide which one to do first cuz you know what I’ll tell you okay so here’s what I’m going to do first the C Berry sauuce because I’m going to roast a whole chicken this week and I love to do that they’re very small they run around in a pasture they’re happy chickens they’re free and I’m going to submit my own thoughts on this I can’t wait to do it these are all easily achievable recipes very attainable full of flavor and health so you may always remain too young to be old thank you br absolutely thank you so much Diane you’re you’re an inspiration so thank you so much thank you thank you so much for listening to two young to be old podcast the episode may be over but the fun doesn’t have to stop here find us on Facebook Instagram Tik Tok and YouTube at the Dian Gilman or visit our website the Dian gilman. comom if you like the show leave us a rating or a review And subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and until then don’t forget age is just a number together we’ll prove that we are all too young to be old [Music]

In this festive episode of Too Young To Be Old, Diane Gilman, the Queen of Jeans turned podcast host, is joined by Britta Sather, a renowned nutritionist. Together, they share tips and recipes for navigating the holiday season without sacrificing health or flavor. Britta brings her expertise to help listeners balance indulgence with nourishment, making it easier to stay energized and vibrant through the holidays.

Balancing Indulgence and Healthy Choices
The holidays are synonymous with indulgent meals, but they don’t have to derail your health. Britta emphasizes the importance of nutrient-dense foods and how incorporating “always foods” (packed with protein, fiber, and vitamins) alongside occasional indulgences can help you enjoy the season guilt-free.

Reimagining Holiday Favorites
Britta has transformed classic holiday dishes into healthier, equally delicious alternatives:
Mac and Cheese Reinvented: Using butternut squash as a base for a creamy texture, this recipe swaps out heavy cream and cheese for vegan alternatives, making it gluten-free, dairy-free, and packed with nutrients.

Lentil Meatballs with Cashew Gravy: A plant-based twist on a classic, Britta’s lentil meatballs are rich in protein and paired with a creamy, nutritious cashew-based gravy that’s perfect for any festive meal.
Fresh Cranberry Sauce: Ditch the canned jelly! This recipe uses fresh cranberries and maple syrup for a naturally sweet and tangy side dish.
Delectable Desserts with a Healthy Spin
Britta shares two dessert recipes that are as satisfying as they are nutritious:
Crustless Pumpkin Pie: Enjoy the rich, spiced filling without the guilt of a butter-laden crust.
Apple Crisp: A healthier alternative to traditional apple pie, made with oats and sweetened with honey or maple syrup.

The Power of Nutrition for Longevity
Diane and Britta discuss how thoughtful eating impacts not just your weight but your overall energy and vitality. Diane shares her personal journey of transforming her diet after chemotherapy, highlighting the life-changing effects of replacing saturated fats and sugar with nutrient-rich foods.

Practical Tips for a Healthy Lifestyle
Replace butter with olive oil in recipes. Use natural sweeteners like honey or maple syrup in moderation. Experiment with plant-based alternatives to traditional ingredients.

Why Holistic Nutrition Matters
Britta reflects on her upbringing in a natural health-focused family and her passion for science-driven nutrition. She encourages listeners to see food as both fuel and a source of joy, empowering them to make choices that enhance health and longevity.

Too Young To Be Old podcast
Through engaging interviews, inspiring discussions, and insightful tips and advice, “Too Young To Be Old” podcast aims to create a community of women who are confident, vibrant, and fearless. And to encourage you to pursue your passions and dreams, no matter your age.

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