Can Sunday roasts be healthy?

I have a roast every weekend, with all the trimmings. Sometimes I swap sweet potato for roast & sometimes I have both, just depends on my calorie allowance for the day.

There's nothing unhealthy about roasts if, like people have said, you watch your portions.

Right okay just to clear a few things up with everyone! It's not the condense of the meal that I'm worried about, it's the way we cook it, I should have been more clear about that . My family has a BIG traditional roast dinner everything cooked in fat, apart from the veg, so my question was really how do I cook it in a healthier way?

Thanks for the advise from those who chose to be helpful and constructive!

What exactly is cooked in fat and why do you think fat is unhealthy. Again portion control..........

I still believe your missing the point. Cooking potatoes and parsnips in oil is not unhealthy, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't use another cooking method, you don't have to use oil. Again though it's portion control.

Thanks for the advise from those who chose to be helpful and constructive!

uh, who wasn't being helpful?

No individual food or meal is good or bad. It has to be considered as part of your total calorie and nacronutrient goals.

Eat a roast, enjoy it. Then, have a chicken salad or something similarly light at tea-time - problem solved!

potatoes and parsnips: just cook them with less fat. They need enough fat to coat them, they don't need to be swimming in fat. How I cook them is I put some oil in a tray, heat that in the oven while parboiling the potatoes (5 minutes for each) then strain the potatoes in a colander and shake them about a bit (if they break up they absorb the oil better and roast better) then I put them in the oil, and turn them over so they're all coated in the oil. then cook them for 40 mins. I hate parsnips but my mum always cooked them the same as potatoes. I also get a couple of small onions, quarter them and put the quarters in the tray as well, also coated in the oil, and they add some flavour, plus I like eating the roasted onions.

re your sister being overweight, she needs to be more active and count calories and learn portion control. Roast potatoes and parsnips aren't what's making her overweight unless she's eating them all the time. It's what people eat day to day that make them obese (i.e. eating more than they burn off on a regular basis), not what you eat once a week.

I agree with Sonofabeach and neanderthin re dietary fat not being unhealthy. It's being inactive and eating too much that's the health risk. There are ways to make some recipes lower in fat, but it's not going to make much difference if someone is doing no exercise and eating too much. The idea that specific foods make people fat is misleading.

If you're worried about the parsnips and potatoes, just cook fewer of them, so everyone has less, and cook more green vegetables. Serve people more meat (it's high in protein which is more filling) along with more veggies and fewer potatoes and parsnips. If dietary cholesterol is an issue (i.e. doctors advice to avoid it) then choose lean cuts of meat. You're still serving up the same meal, but the nutrients are better balanced (i.e. more protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre, with proportionally less fat and carbs... but that doesn't make fat or carbs the bad guys, they're healthy and necessary, just easier to overeat on)

I often do a pot roast with a lean cut either either in the crock pot or in the oven, with potatoes and carrots. My crock pot recipe book actually has the calorie count for the dish. Let's put it this way, an average serving -- 4 oz. of meat, 1 small potato, and some carrots, usually with a salad on the side, is still much lower than any meal I have in a restaurant. I almost never go over limit with any meal I cook myself because I'm in control of the portions.

The type of fat can vary as well, sometimes it will be cooking oil and sometimes it will be duck fat! Deepening on occasion and if we have guests, portion control for me personally isn't too much of a problem, but my dad and my sister load their plates and both go for seconds

The only way you can change this is to lead by example! Eat what you eat, continue to lose weight and when they see how fantastic you are doing maybe they will then want to follow in your footsteps.

Like the old saying goes, you can lead the horse to water but you can't make it drink!

Just remember to add the fat into MFP so it will count toward your calories. If you have that for dinner, eat a lighter lunch and breakfast and it will all work out.

<< I mean the potatoes and parsnips are cooked in ALOT of fat which varies depending on how many he is cooking for! >>