Achieving a healthy lifestyle is about the choices you make day in and day out. We’re not into cutting foods out, but do appreciate minor tweaks that help you to feel like your healthiest self.
Drastic changes don’t have to be made and you don’t have to sacrifice your favorite foods to achieve this! A simple gateway to changing your dietary habits is replacing what you already eat with similar, but more healthful, options.
We’ve put together a list of some of our favorite healthy food swaps to help guide you the next time you’re at the grocery store. Challenge: Try to make at least one (or more!) of these this week! 😉
Instead of this → Try this!
1. Flour tortillas → Corn tortillas
Generally, corn tortillas have less calories, carbs, fat, and sodium than flour tortillas. Corn tortillas are also gluten-free so if you have any gluten sensitivity corn tortillas are the way to go!
2. Milk chocolate → Dark chocolate
Chocolate comes from the cacao plant. The closer you can stay to cacao in its purest form, the better it will be for you. Dark chocolate is a higher percentage of cacao than milk chocolate, therefore you’d be receiving more of the health benefits the plant has to offer (such as antioxidants).
Milk chocolate is basically just dark chocolate that contains more sugar, so transitioning over to dark chocolate could be a winning swap!
3. Thick crust pizza → Thin crust pizza, cauliflower crust pizza
Getting a thin crust pizza instead of thick crust or deep dish will save you a ton of carbs and calories. Cauliflower crust is another good gluten-free option.
Just be sure to read the label and make sure it’s high quality and not full of additives. Even veggie crusts will have a bunch of processed filler ingredients, making it worse for you. A good rule of thumb is that you should be able to pronounce all the ingredients — and typically the fewer the ingredients the better!
4. White Rice → Brown rice, quinoa, riced cauliflower, riced broccoli
White rice, along with most white carbs, has been stripped of some of its nutritional value. Instead, reaching for brown rice or quinoa (high protein, fibrous grain) will provide a more nutrient dense profile!
If you’re looking to add more fiber in or trying to stay lower carb, riced cauliflower and broccoli are also good options, because, ya know, vegetables.
5. White pasta → Spaghetti squash, spiralized zucchini, whole wheat pasta, lentil pasta, chickpea pasta, other veggie pasta
If you’re looking to cut back on refined and processed foods, swapping out white pasta for other, more nutrient-dense noodles like whole wheat, lentil, chickpea, or other bean-based pasta is the way to go. Not only do they provide more nutrients, but they also give you additional protein. For example, chickpea pasta contains 13g of protein per serving!
Similar to the rice swaps, you can also use spiralized veggies or spaghetti squash to keep these dishes lower in carb and provide additional fiber.
6. French fries → Bake or air-fry, sweet potatoes
It’s no surprise that a fried potato isn’t the healthiest choice, although it sure is a delicious one!
Oftentimes, they’re fried in seed oils which can be inflammatory for many. As a more healthful option, you can bake or air fry potatoes. It’s fewer calories and keeps them in their whole food form.
Swapping with sweet potato fries is another great way to get more nutrients in as they are high in vitamin A and antioxidants due to their deep orange color.
7. Conventional Dairy → Almond, Cashew, Hemp, Coconut
Many people can’t digest dairy or choose not to for health, ethical, or environmental reasons. There are some good alternatives that taste similar and/or have a similar consistency. Choosing a plant-based milk alternative is completely personal and individual based on your preferences. Many of these options contain added ingredients or inflammatory ingredients. Check the labels for the purest forms of these milk alternatives. (Or make your own!)
If dairy settles well with you, lean toward organic dairy products. This will help to cut out any added hormones that conventional dairy often contains
8. Mayonnaise/Sour Cream → Avocado, Greek yogurt
Avocado or Greek yogurt give the creamy, fatty texture you’re looking for, but provide you with amazing nutritional benefits including added fiber, magnesium, B6, vitamin C, vitamin E, probiotics, and folate which are often lacking in many people’s diets.
These swaps work great in egg salad and Greek salad, and the avocado is fabulous on burgers and sandwiches!
9. Mashed potatoes → Cauliflower mash, mashed sweet potatoes
The reasons here are similar to the French fry swap. Choosing cauliflower or sweet potatoes can save you calories and carbs, and give you more fiber and other vitamins/nutrients!
10. Fruit juice → Coconut water, fruit-infused water
Fruit juices tend to be extremely high in sugar, making them almost equivalent to drinking a soda.
A healthy, natural alternative is to instead reach for coconut water or a natural sparkling water.
Better yet, get creative and make your own fruit-infused water! There are tons of ideas/inspiration out there, especially in the Pinterest world. We typically keep it simple with citrus or berries!
11. Canola/vegetable oil → Avocado oil, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil
When cooking with oils, it’s important to go for resilient oils like avocado that aren’t easily damaged at higher temperatures. Doing so will reduce inflammation in the body, and these tend to be less processed.
12. White sugar → Raw honey, pure maple syrup, coconut sugar, or sugar alternatives like Stevia and Monkfruit
When you’re working to unprocess your diet, but still want to sweeten your treats, coffee, etc. – reaching for natural sugar alternatives like honey, maple syrup, or coconut sugar can provide you the same sweetness without being heavily refined.
Another way to do this is to go for sugar alternatives (and no we aren’t talking Splenda here!). Stevia and Monk fruit come from plants and are shown to have no impact on your blood sugar levels.
13. Ice cream → Banana ice cream, Greek yogurt with toppings
Fun fact… if you throw frozen bananas in the blender, it basically turns into soft-serve ice cream! It’s such a healthy and delicious alternative to ice cream.
You can also use Greek yogurt here for a healthy alternative that’s still super satisfying especially when topped with berries, nut butter, or dark chocolate.
You can add these fun toppings to the banana ice cream trick as well for additional flavor!
Bringing it home:
These are just a few of our favorite go-to healthy food swaps but there are plenty more out there to be made! And remember that just because we talk about swaps, doesn’t mean those “original” foods should be avoided or that they’re bad. No foods are off-limits! We just love options and the opportunity to learn more about the foods we eat
We’d love to hear from y’all on what some of your favorite healthy food swaps are! Share in the comments below which ones you’re going to try, have tried, or come up with on your own!
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