Healthy Nachos & Healthy Substitutions!

It’s all about the choices! Simple substitutions for ingredients that you normally use can make a huge impact on your calorie intact. If you are trying to eat healthier, try some of these simple substitutions taken from Nachos that my honey and I made.


Tip #1: Use baked instead of regular tortilla chips, 8.5% less calories and 68% less fat! A minor change would be white corn instead of yellow corn, but this change alone is 14% less fat.

Tip #2: Add lots of veggies! We added corn and zucchini; it was delicious and more nutritious for us.

Tip #3: Lima beans have no fat! They are by far the best choice for beans. Even if you don’t go with the lima beans, you can still save calories and fat grams. Choose Kidney Beans, Black Beans, Pinto Beans, or Red Kidney Beans over Navy Beans and Chili Beans. This simple choice will save you 30% in calories and ½ the fat! And, the Lima bean would save you 36% in calories and all the fat grams would be gone!

Tip #4: The Cheese. Yes, the cheese is a huge culprit no matter how you look at it. However, you can still make better choices, Use American, Mexican Blend – Reduced Fat, Cheez Wiz, Velveeta, or Mozzarella instead of Swiss, Monterey, Colby, or Cheddar. Now cheese is my biggest weakness, so I won’t, probably, follow my own advice. If I did, I could save 28% of the calories and 67% of the fat grams.

Tip #5: Ground Turkey vs. Ground Beef. This one’s simple. It hardly changes the taste and saves 15% of the calories and 20% of the fat grams.

Tip #6: Salsa is Fabulous! Load it on! No fat grams! One ounce has only 7 calories. Make up for smaller portions of meat and cheese with more salsa and more veggies!

Tip #7: Taco sauce is similar to salsa; very low in calories and no fat grams! The green is ½ the calories of the red however. One ounce of green is 7 calories and one ounce of red is 14 calories.

Tip #8: Most spices have very few calories and fat grams. You can use quite a bit to make your foods taste better. There are a few to watch out for though; check the powders. Chili powder and onion powder have more than you would think.

Tip #9: Use sites, such as nutritiondata.com, to compare ingredients and determine what is best for you and your health!

Imagine, you can have 1/3-1/2 the calories and fat by making simple choices! Take these notes with you the next time you go shopping, or check the labels!

Now, if you save ½ the calories, that doesn’t mean you can eat twice as much!

Portion Control is the key!