The Challenge: Swapping fat for pure F.A.T.

The Challenge: Lose weight and develop a healthier way of eating by replacing fat with F.A.T. and     making dishes with weekly featured ingredients corresponding with the letters of the alphabet.     

Let me start out by saying that I AM NOT a fat basher.  I LOVE IT!  FAT IS DELICIOUS!  I just know that eating that fantastic stuff on a regular basis is not the way to go if I’m trying to achieve good or better health.  So, beginning January 1, 2012, I’m embarking on a culinary voyage where I’ll be eliminating a good chunk of fat (or making it walk the plank as it were) out of my diet in an effort to lose weight and have a healthier lifestyle.  That sounds like a tall order because as I’ve already stated, FAT IS DELICIOUS!  But, it is a necessary journey and one well worth traveling because while I’m fostering healthier eating habits, I’ll also be introducing myself to some new and exotic flavors and ingredients.

In order to do this, I had to honestly ask myself, “Why do I eat fat?”  Well, if you ask me, there are primarily three main reasons why anybody eats it.  Outside of the basic need of food for sustenance, they’re the same reasons why we eat anything. And, ironically the first letter of each of the reasons I’ve come up with spell out fat:

Reason #1: Flavor.    First and foremost, we eat and cook with fat because it’s full of flavor.  Fat gives food an undeniable depth of flavor that’s truly sublime. It just tastes good!

Reason #2: Aroma.   The aroma of fat is intoxicating.  I don’t think anyone can count the  number of times they’ve salivated over the aroma of fat sizzling away on the stove or grill, and licked their lips in anticipation of what was to come when whatever morsel of food lucky enough to be slathered in said glorious fat finally hit their plates.

Reason #3: Texture. The texture of fat provides an amazing mouth-feel to food.  Fat can truly transform a dish; its various textures can be crispy, crunchy, buttery, creamy or supple.  The texture it provides to food makes the eating experience that much more enjoyable.

Now that I’ve completed my praise fest on fat, I’ll say that my plan to reduce it from my diet is by replacing it with F.A.T.  Instead of eating and cooking with so much fat, I’m going to coax out great flavor, aroma, and texture (F.A.T.) from other ingredients to achieve the same or better results than I’d get if I cooked with a lot of fat.  To help facilitate this and keep it interesting, each week I’m going to feature a different ingredient to coincide with a letter of the alphabet and will come up with dishes featuring those all important elements of F.A.T.  I’ll be going from A-Z and back again.  I’ll post pix of my successes and give you all the skinny on my flops.  And to any skeptics out there, there most definitely are ingredients that coincide with EVERY letter of the alphabet.  You’ll have to check back and see what I come up with.  J

You can clearly see that I don’t hate fat, which is why this challenge is so daunting to me.

Hopefully, blogging about this effort and making it public will help keep me on the straight and narrow, and maybe even inspire others to try to get a handle on their poor eating habits. 

The fun begins on January 1, 2012, so stay tuned to see what my first ingredient will be. In the mean time, we’ll hopefully get to know each other a little better because I’ll be blogging to give you a little background about me and giving you my two cents about food. Feel free to comment, email, and send ingredient suggestions.  Wish me luck!