Check out the tips and table below to see how you can eat less saturated fat, sugar and salt.
Cooking your own meals as often as possible is a great way to make healthy food choices. Use mostly whole foods or less-processed ingredients. For easy, fast and affordable meal ideas, see the Healthy Kids website.
When cooking and preparing foods
- Limit highly processed foods (eg, ‘heat and eat’ meals like pizza).
- Remove the chicken skin after cooking.
- Add flavour to food using herbs, spices and lemon or lime juice instead of using salt.
- Use fruit to replace sugar on your breakfast cereal.
- If you are adding salt, use iodised salt and try to use less salt over time.
- When roasting or baking, place meat on a rack so that fat can drip off.
- Choose foods with the least amount of salt. Avoid high-salt foods with more than 600 mg of sodium per 100 g of food.
- Choose meat with little visible fat or remove the fat before cooking.
Choosing healthier options
| Instead of this | Use this |
|---|---|
| Butter | Margarine or other plant-based unsaturated spreads |
| Lard and/or dripping | Water (for roasting meat), small amount of plant-based monounsaturated oils, eg, canola, olive or rice bran oils |
| Coconut oil | Small amount of plant-based unsaturated oils – if using oil for cooking, choose monounsaturated oil like the examples given above |
| Full-fat milk | Low- and reduced-fat milk |
| High-fat cheese, eg, mild, Colby | Reduced-fat cheese, eg, edam |
| Coconut cream | ‘Lite’ coconut cream or milk, or use half water and half coconut cream |
| White bread | Higher fibre, dense whole grain bread |
| High-fat takeaways | Healthier option takeaways, eg, kebabs or wraps with plenty of salad, non-fried Asian rice or noodle dishes with plenty of vegetables |
| Sugar-coated breakfast cereal | Whole grain cereal, eg, porridge or whole wheat breakfast biscuits |
| Muesli bars | Fresh fruit or a small handful of unsalted nuts |
| Chippies and a cream-based dip | Raw vegetable sticks and hummus, or homemade popcorn (go easy on the salt) |
| Sugary drinks | Water. It is nice chilled, with fresh mint and/ or a slice of lemon |
| Fruit juice | Glass of chilled water and a piece of fruit |
| Dried fruit | Fresh fruit |
How to eat less saturated fat, sugar and salt
