Putting the Right Stuff in Stuffing

It’s as synonymous to Thanksgiving as the turkey itself as Thanksgiving meal preparers everywhere wake up early Turkey Day morning and stuff their birds with—what else?—stuffing.

And while stuffing is a staple for virtually every Thanksgiving table top, you need to be careful about its preparation if you want your side dishes to be as healthy as possible.

Of course, just about anything can serve as stuffing, but the stuffing I’m talking about is the kind that’s traditionally made with bread, spices, bread crumbs and sausage.  In short, a carbohydrate-loaded, MSG-encrusted conglomeration that’s loaded – LOADED – with sodium.

Unlike other foods, though—like, say, turkey skin—stuffing is not necessarily a food that you should pass on.  It has redeeming qualities.  In fact, it can be a very healthful side dish as long as you prepare it with the proper ingredients.

What you don’t want to do is make it the traditional way, which is with white bread, pork sausage, and heaping helpings of salt.  If you make it this way, it’s one calorie-rich dish.  Just a large spoonful or two of stuffing has 310 calories, 12 grams of fat and 1,440 grams of sodium!

Instead, trade white bread for 100 percent whole wheat bread or whole wheat couscous.  Ditch the sausage and stuff the stuffing with some porcini mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, and finely chopped onions and celery.  For seasoning, instead of loading it up with salt, be liberal with your use of spices, like rosemary, marjoram, sage, and parsley.

Here’s a great stuffing recipe from a writer for the Associated Press.  By using these ingredients instead of the more traditionally used ingredients, you save about 200 calories, three grams of fat (the fat that is in the stuffing is the good kind from walnuts), and about 1,200 grams of sodium (just 209 grams in a serving).

Finally, instead of stuffing the stuffing in the bird, cook it outside the bird (about half the country cooks stuffing inside the bird, the other half outside).  You’ll save on calories this way, and you won’t risk infecting the stuffing with bacteria like salmonella (this is why the temperature of the turkey and the stuffing is so important.  Stuffing should be at least 165 degrees before serving, especially if you decide to cook the stuffing inside the bird).

By making smarter ingredient decisions, you can get stuffed on stuffing and not feel guilty about doing it.  After all, it’s Thanksgiving!

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Sources
fastfoodnutrition.org
theworldlink.com
recipetips.com