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Are you ready for some football?! Super Bowl is right around the corner; I hope you’re firming up your Super Bowl party plans.

Aside from the game, halftime show and hilarious commercials, I admit, I look forward to the snack spread at Super Bowl parties.

As delicious as all the traditional Super Bowl snacks are, they are usually high in calories, fat and carbohydrates, effectively sabotaging your healthy 2016 New Year’s resolutions. And you’re chowing down on all these unhealthy snacks while sitting sedentary on a couch for three hours. Not good.

But the good news is you can easily make over some of the traditional Super Bowl snacks into healthier dishes without skimping on flavor. Your guests won’t even notice the difference. Here’s how you can lighten up your Super Bowl fare so everyone feels like a winner by the end of the game.

Buffalo wings

You really can’t think of the Super Bowl without thinking about wings.

Traditional wings are high in calories and fat – about 160 calories and 11 grams of fat per wing. Yes, that’s for one wing. Those nutritional facts don’t even consider you dipping your wings in ranch or blue cheese dressing to boot!

Buffalo wings can easily be made healthy by making them yourself on a grill. Marinate your raw chicken wings in herb marinate with oil, vinegar, ketchup and hot sauce. Marinating and grilling your own wings means you can have three wings for 200 calories and 15 grams of fat.

Beer

The only thing that goes better with football than wings is beer. Unfortunately, most beer is high in calories and carbohydrates. Make over your party’s beer selection by making sure there are light beers as well as dark, heavier beers.

Drinking light beer in moderation is ideal when you’re watching your calories, but some studies have shown dark beers have some nutritional value. Dark beers, like Guinness, tend to be high in iron and contain flavonoids, which are similar to the antioxidants found in red wine.

You can also offer your guests red wine and white wine spritzers. And, of course, make sure water is readily available to keep your guests well hydrated between alcoholic drinks.

Just as a reminder, drinking in moderation means one beer for women per day and two beers per day for men.

Pizza

It’s easy to order or heat up frozen pizzas to serve at your party, but just one slice of take-out plain pizza is about 300 calories, if not more, depending on the restaurant it’s from and the toppings you choose. Just like Buffalo wings, you can make over your pizza – choose a thin crust or a whole wheat dough, go light on the sauce, choose part-skim mozzarella cheese, and top it with roasted vegetables.

Tortilla chips

At the grocery store, look for baked tortilla chips – they tend to have 50 percent less fat than traditional tortilla chips. Even better, choose multigrain tortilla chips.

Multigrain tortilla chips are made with brown rice, flax, sesame and sunflower seeds and quinoa, which are all heart-healthy grains. You can even skip corn-based tortilla chips all together by choosing bean-based chips that are high in fiber.

Potato chips

You could easily serve baked potato chips, but everyone will catch on to your healthy snack sneak attack. Instead, look for something a little more exciting like sweet potato chips, baked pita chips or one of the multigrain options out there. Or you could satisfy your guests’ desire for a crunchy snack with multigrain pretzels or fresh veggies such as carrots, celery, cucumbers and snap peas or even broccoli and cauliflower.

Creamy dips

As delicious as spinach and artichoke and taco dips are, they’re creamy, and that means they’re probably full of fat and calories.

Give your creamy dips a makeover by swapping Greek yogurt in for full-fat sour cream. Greek yogurt is lower in fat and calories and high in protein. If your recipe calls for cream cheese, you can use Neufchatel cheese instead, which is slightly lower in calories.

You can also skip creamy dips all together by serving guacamole and fresh salsa.

Although guacamole is high in calories, the avocado in it gives you heart-healthy fats, vitamins and minerals.

Enjoy the game and time with friends and family but make wise food choices and you’ll win, even if your team doesn’t.

Alfred Casale To Your Health
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_casale.jpg.optimal.jpgAlfred Casale To Your Health

By Alfred Casale

To Your Health

Dr. Alfred Casale is chairman of surgery for the Geisinger Heart Institute, co-director of the Cardiovascular Service Line for the Geisinger Health System and Associate Chief Medical Officer for the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center. Readers may write to him via [email protected].