To have more control over your diet it is essential to learn how 'to adapt your meals'.

A healthy diet it is all about having the right balance. Learning how to adapt your daily favourite recipes is easy, it just takes a bit of practice but it will be worth it in the end. It is always much easier to maintain healthy changes in the long term if you adapt your normal recipes.

Here are some healthy cooking tips to get you started;

• Grill, bake, poach, steam, microwave or boil foods rather than frying them or cooking with added fat.
  
• Use low fat dairy products where possible such as skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, reduced fat cheeses and low fat yoghurts.
  
• Light crème fraiche is very similar to traditional soured cream. It is heat stable and is therefore ideal for use in savoury sauces. It is also delicious served on hot or cold puddings in place of double cream.
  
• Fromage frais is fresh skimmed cows milk cheese, but it tastes more like a natural yoghurt. It is not heat stable and is therefore best used in desserts and dips in place of cream or Greek yoghurt.
  
• When nothing but cream will work, spoon extra thick single cream onto fruit or puddings instead of double cream. Whip up whipping cream rather than double cream for filling cream buns or cakes.
  
• Use fats and oils, which are high in monounsaturates.
  
• Try using stronger cheese for cooking. You won’t have to use as much to give it a cheesy flavour. Grate your cheese as it tends to go further.
  
• Try to use brown rice or pasta in place of white as it contains more fibre (but bear in mind it will require more water and a longer cooking time). If you do choose a lower fibre variety of rice or pasta, serve it with some higher fibre food like pulses or extra vegetables. For example, add peas or kidney beans to white rice.
  
• Try and reduce the amount of salt used in cooking and at the table as we eat more salt than we need. Flavour your food with lemon juice, herbs, spices or mustard instead for healthier, tastier food.
  
• Use pulses such as peas, beans or lentils to replace some of the meat in traditional recipes for shepherd’s pie, casseroles, lasagne. They can also be used in soups and salads. They are low in fat and high in fibre. Tinned beans are more convenient to use but are more expensive than dried ones.
  
• Experiment by reducing the added sugar in your baking recipes. Most cakes, for example sponge cake, will work even if the sugar in the recipe is cut by a half. Remember that they will not keep as long as a traditional recipe. Intense sweeteners are not recommended for baking as they do not provide the bulk required. Recipes such as fruitcakes, fruit scones or tea breads can be made without added sugar, the dried fruit will provide the sweetness.
  
• Jams and marmalades. Instead of using the traditional ratio of 1lb fruit to 1lb sugar you can reduce this to 1lb fruit to ¾ lb sugar.
  
• Cold desserts such as fruit fool and foods which require no further cooking e.g. custard can be sweetened to taste with a liquid or granulated intense sweetener if necessary.
  
• Hot puddings, such as fruit pies, crumbles or bread pudding, can be sweetened with sugar if necessary but some fruit based puddings or puddings with added dried fruit will not require any sweetening at all. Intense sweetener is not recommended for use in cooking when the recipe requires heating to a high temperature over a period of time, as it can turn bitter on heating.
  
• Recipes using a reduced amount of sugar will not keep as long as a traditional recipe as sugar is a natural preservative. To avoid any wastage, freeze in portions that can be defrosted as needed – but check that the recipe is suitable for freezing first.
  
• Remember, the fat content of dessert and baking recipes is important too. Try to reduce the fat by swapping high fat ingredients for lower fat alternatives.

You don’t need to adapt your recipes when baking if you only eat cakes at special occasions such as birthdays.