Holidays and Food

• A major part of most big holidays is food. Holidays mean celebration, and food is one of the major things we celebrate with. Find the food that allows you to feel a part of the celebration and won't conflict with your health issues. The good news? The food you're looking for is out there.
  
  

List the Foods You Can Have

• First, make a list of all the foods that you can have, or can have with only minor changes. Thanksgiving turkey, for example, is acceptable for almost all diets. Baked yams and sweet potatoes (without the little marshmallows) are fine, too. Add extra vegetable dishes to your menu, whole-grain breads, and fresh fruit salad as well as cranberry sauce.
  
  

List the Foods You Can't Have

• Second, list the foods your diet won't allow, but without which, it just doesn't feel like a holiday to you. Maybe it's apple pie for Thanksgiving, cookies and fruitcake at Christmas, jelly or chocolate Easter eggs, and barbecue for Fourth of July.
  
  Once you've flagged the holiday foods you still want (but are told you can't have), the next step is finding a way you can still have them, or an acceptable version of them.
  
  

Find Equivalents

• Find your favorite recipe for each dish or dessert that is a problem. Check off the ingredients you can't have -- sugar, butter, cream, salt and/or spices, etc. Then find equivalents for them.
  
  For sugar, there are sugar substitutes (a new one, Stevia, a natural, caloric-free sweetener from a South African shrub, comes in powder and liquid). For butter and cream, equivalents include unsweetened applesauce, pureed banana, and plain yogurt. For salt and/or spices, find which ones your diet will allow, and substitute those. Take corn on the cob, for example. If salt is out, mace and nutmeg make a delicious substitute.
  
  

Find a New Recipe

• If you find that you still lack a certain holiday food that's important to you, check out the Internet for sugar-free, salt-free, fat-free, you-name-it-free recipes. Good places to look include the various diabetic and diet-specific websites, but there are also a lot of websites where people share recipes that help them get through the holidays.
  
  

Start a New Tradition

• Traditional holiday food is wonderful, but all traditions have to start somewhere. If the old traditional foods can't be part of your diet, start some delicious new traditions of your own. Instead of a sugary, high-calorie Christmas eggnog, try mulling (heating and stirring) unsweetened apple cider with cinnamon, nutmeg and a little ginger. You'll be surprised at how much your friends and family will enjoy starting a new tradition and how fast it will catch on.