Did you enjoy turkey for Thanksgiving? Not everyone is a turkey fan or chooses to partake of turkey for this holiday but many if not most Americans do. Turkey is lean nutritious meat that can be enjoyed all year round but that hasn’t been true for long. At one time 90 percent of all turkey meat was sold as the whole bird during the holiday season of November and December.

Turkey has become more popular in large part because individual turkey pieces such as breasts, tenderloins, cutlets and ground turkey are now available. And, of course, there’s the option to purchase pre-cooked turkey as deli slices or otherwise. When eating turkey meant having to purchase, prepare, and cook the whole bird it just wasn’t as appealing to do very often. Thankfully that’s changed.

Although, I may not have included turkey in my list of the top ten foods for women and weight loss, it does rank high on the list of healthy choices. Ounce for ounce turkey breast without the skin has more protein and less fat than beef or pork. A three-ounce serving of skinless boneless turkey breast has about 115 calories with 26 grams of protein, 1 gram of fat, and 0 grams of saturated fat. (Chicken is similar but not quite as good. A three ounce serving of skinless boneless chicken breast has about 140 calories with 26 grams of protein, 3 grams of fat, and close to 1 gram of saturated fat.) Turkey is also an excellent source of iron, zinc, and many B vitamins including riboflavin, B6, and B12.

So if you are watching your calorie intake and nutrition, turkey meat can be a great choice. Even the dark meat is relatively lean compared with other meats but it does have more total fat, saturated fat, and calories than breast meat. What you want to watch, however, is the ground turkey.

Ground turkey typically has significantly more fat. It ranges from 85 to 99 percent fat free. The amount of fat varies depending on whether the ground turkey includes a mix of dark and light meat along with some skin or if it is prepared from breast meat only. Something to keep in mind is that 85 percent fat free does not mean the turkey has 15 percent fat but rather that it is about 15 percent fat by weight. This actually translates into about 51 percent fat in terms of calories. See Weight Loss Success: Are You Buying the Best Products? for a better explanation of how that works.)

Adding low fat turkey meat to a recipe can boost the protein content of a dish while keeping the calorie count down. I’ve found turkey to be a great choice for preparing low calorie nutritious meals. I’ll share a few recipes with you for turkey meals with 350 calories or less per serving. You may have used up your turkey leftovers for this season but keep these recipes handy and you may very well find yourself preparing turkey breast more often!

1. Turkey with Curried Cream Sauce
2. Turkey Waldorf Salad
3. Turkey Pizza
4. Turkey Apple Gyros

Want more ideas? Check out the online recipe sites. Lots of recipes I’ve found call for ground turkey. But it’s quite easy to substitute chopped cooked turkey to save time and possibly calories. Just keep in mind the ratio of 4 to 3. For example, as a general rule, 4 ounces of uncooked meat will become about 3 ounces of cooked meat if you are cooking whole cuts. Ground meat will yield somewhat less.

Till next time, watch those calories and eat healthy!

Are you aware that the company Lean Cuisine has a product recall for three of their frozen entrees? If you enjoy Lean Cuisine you may want to check your freezer to see if you have one of these three:

Lean Cuisine Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie

Lean Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean

Lean Cuisine Chicken Tuscan

These particular chicken meals may contain pieces of hard blue plastic. You can read more about the product recall and get the production codes to look for at the Web MD site.

Food production on a large scale is not easy. There is the potential for so many things to go wrong. I worked in Quality Assurance for a small food company many years ago and I can honestly say that despite rigorous procedures and care, things happen. It’s a wonder that we don’t have more product recalls than we do.

Lean Cuisine offers reasonably healthy and nutritionally balanced pre-prepared meals. I am not affiliated with the company in any way. Nor do I recommend depending on frozen entrees or any other packaged meals on a regular basis. Home-prepared meals from fresh whole foods are best. (In addition, there are the questions of environmental impact and social justice but that’s another discussion.) I do eat frozen entrees from time to time like most everyone else.

I particularly like some of the Spa Cuisine choices because they seem to have more added fruits and vegetables than the others. Lean Cuisine has partnered with the non-profit organization Fruits and Veggies: More Matters. I agree, fruits and vegetables are very important!

The Lean Cuisine website and Fruit and Veggies site offer some resources you might find helpful in your efforts to eat low calorie healthy meals.

Lean Cuisine:

You can download a PDF version of nutritional information for Lean Cuisine products. With the included chart you can get a better sense of which meals might fit best with your diet. Trying to keep your carb or fat grams down to a certain amount? Or maybe you need to watch your intake of saturated fat like me. Well now there’s no need to stand at the frozen food case at the grocers reading one Nutrition Facts label after another. (To learn how many grams of fat or carbohydrate you need on a 1200 or 1500 calorie diet you may want to read: 1200 Calorie Diet: Protein, Carbohydrate, Fat, and Fiber Needs)

Lean Cuisine Products: Nutrition Information (Look for Wellness Tools then Nutrition Information. It is only available as a download.)

Fruit and Veggies: More Matters

1. This organization provides lists of what fruits and vegetables are available by season. Very nice! This can be quite useful when you are planning meals for the week but you can’t remember if it is the right season for a certain fresh fruit or vegetable.

Fruits and Vegetables: Availability by Season

(Be sure to check my lists on the Women and Weight Website for which fruits and vegetables are your best bets as far as calories and fiber content:

Fall Fruits and Vegetables: Low Calorie and High Fiber

Low Calorie, High Fiber Winter Fruits and Vegetables

High Fiber, Low Calorie Spring Fruits and Vegetables

Low Calorie, High Fiber Summer Fruits and Vegetables

2. Something else you might want to explore is the recipe section for the Fruit and Veggies site. I spent a few minutes looking around and found some recipes I’d like to try! The calorie counts for certain recipes seems to be reasonable but do pay attention to the serving size.

Fruits and Veggies: More Matters - Recipes

There’s also a menu choice (see the sidebar on the right) that offers recipes that can be prepared in 30 minutes or less.

If you would like more information on sites that offer healthy recipes or where to go to get nutrition information you may want to check out two of my previous review articles:

Healthy Low Calorie Recipes: 8 Super Sites to See

Nutrition Calculators: Review of the Best Sites Online

Till next time, watch those calories and remember to eat healthy!