Be filled with cheer (and not regret): Tips for savoring healthier holiday meals

’Tis the season for overeating … and for all the regret that follows. As we approach the holiday food season, Yale culinary medicine expert Nate Wood shares some insights into making healthier choices during a time of indulgence — or at least putting up a better fight.

“People are excited to celebrate with people they love, and that involves a lot of good food,” said Wood, assistant professor in medicine (general medicine) and director of Culinary Medicine at Yale School of Medicine. “But everyone’s familiar with the old tension: ‘These foods are ‘bad’ for me. I’m going to feel bloated and gain weight, and it’s inevitably going to be followed in January by a crash diet that will fail.’

“I, too, feel the food tension personally as someone who likes to eat tasty food but also wants to keep myself healthy through what I eat,” he added. “That’s the chef-doctor in me, for sure.”

This vicious cycle can be broken. One strategy, Wood says, is to reframe your approach. Because healthy eating is about more than denial: What you add to the table can help outweigh (no pun intended) what you subtract.

“It’s important that we acknowledge food as medicine, while at the same time acknowledging that everyone wants their food to taste good and be something they can share with people they love,” said Wood, a physician and trained chef who graduated from the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. “People can enjoy the holidays, eat delicious food — even indulge here and there — while still treating their body well and enjoying healthy foods.”

Wood also directs the Irving and Alice Brown Teaching Kitchen at Yale New Haven Health, co-leads the weight management clinic at the New Haven Primary Care Consortium, and serves on the building advisory committee for City Seed, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering a healthy, sustainable food ecosystem in New Haven.  (In a new Yale online course, Wood also offers tips for graduate students and others on low-cost, high-nutrition eating.)

In an interview, he discusses damage control, the art of the swap, and the quiet heroism of fruits and vegetables. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you approach menu planning when “healthy” is the goal?

Nate Wood: My big thing is I don’t tell people to cut out foods. I tell them to add more options. If the whole table is full of unhealthy foods, that’s all you’ll eat. But if you add a bunch of healthy options, you’ll end up eating at least a little of the healthy stuff, because it’s there, and it looks good, and you like a variety of foods.

Before we dive into specifics, do you have any overall guiding principles?

Wood: Load up on fruits and vegetables, because they’re probably going to be the most health-promoting things on the table. Instead of filling up on seven different desserts, make sure you first get a serving of all the fruits and vegetables on the table: the green bean casserole, the corn, the mashed potatoes, the cranberry relish — even what we call “salad” in the Midwest, which is really just Jell-O and whipped cream but with fruit in it.

Prioritizing hydration is also big. Drink a glass of water before sitting down to eat. People are going to be eating a lot of salty foods and heavy foods. They’re going to be drinking more alcohol or celebratory drinks like eggnog. But remember, our body can confuse hunger and thirst. Drinking a big glass of water before a meal is both great for hydration and energy levels, and it may also help us consume less.

Okay, let’s go to the centerpiece, the main dish

Wood: When it comes to main dishes, people usually think turkey, ham, or some kind of beef. Sometimes it’ll be a prime rib on Christmas or a nice pork roast.

What should be avoided if possible?

Wood: Ham is super popular, but it’s a processed meat, and that’s pretty much as bad as it gets. Another option that’s not super health-promoting would be a prime rib-type cut of beef, which is just a big cut of red meat with a lot of saturated fat (as delicious as it is!)

What do you suggest as a swap?

Wood: Two healthier swaps certainly would be turkey or chicken. I prefer roast chicken to roast turkey. I think most chefs do, because it has so much more moisture. But on Thanksgiving you’re probably going to have a roast turkey. Both are great choices because they’re lean poultry, so there’s quite a bit of protein without a lot of saturated fat.

Another option that people probably don’t think about enough is a roast pork loin. Pork loin is super low in fat, as is anything else that ends in “-loin” (pork loin, sirloin, all these loin cuts). A pork loin is also very easy to make, very tender, very delicious. You can marinate it, or you can buy it pre-marinated. It feels fancy and looks fancy but is quite affordable, and it’s actually good for us, too.

And if somebody says, “Forget this! We’ve got to have a big hunk of beef”?

Wood: Then it’s going to come down to portion size. If you want steak, a sirloin is going to be a healthier cut. Or if you have the financial means, a filet mignon is a very healthy cut because it’s so low in fat. But a ribeye or a New York strip is going to be higher in saturated fat, so control the portion size. I love eating prime rib at Christmas. The key is sticking to something like four or six ounces of meat and then loading up on side dishes — with plenty of veggies and a glass of water before.

Which brings us to the sides. Which are healthiest? And if you’ve just got to have the mashed potatoes with a stick of butter, what can be done? 

Wood: Mashed potatoes are a must for me, too. People fear white potatoes, but they needn’t. They have a lot of fiber. They have a lot of vitamins, a lot of potassium. A little butter really is necessary for mashed potatoes, but instead of adding a lot of butter, along with whole milk or heavy cream, you can substitute reduced fat sour cream, which brings a lot of creaminess. Or go with low- or no-fat Greek yogurt, which adds creaminess and extra protein, without the fat.

A technique I learned in culinary school, which I now do all the time with mashed potatoes, is adding white pepper instead of black pepper. White pepper has a totally different flavor, and it brings a lot to the party. If you’re cutting back on things like fat and butter and cream, it’s good to add something equally interesting.

You could also do a true mashed potato and keep the skins on, which adds interesting texture and fiber. Throw in chives or garlic. Focus on adding in fun things that amp up flavor.

And the all-important gravy?

Wood: With gravy, it’s all about the thickening. There are a couple of different ways to thicken gravy. You can use butter and flour, which is the traditional way and adds a lot of calories. Or you can add cornstarch and a little water to the meat drippings, which has almost no calories and still leads to a nice, thick gravy. I add a little Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce — or both! — to my gravy. It makes it delectably savory, and then maybe you’re not missing that butter.

Do you have any other tips to make side dishes healthier?

Wood: Sweet potatoes are a great option. You can bake or purée them. We do a sweet potato crisp in my family with pecans on top, which is delicious. If you want to lightly sweeten it with maple syrup or honey and then put some nuts on top, that’s great. Nuts are a nutritional powerhouse.

For the classic green bean casserole, don’t use a can of store-bought cream of mushroom soup, which is loaded with sodium. Instead, take evaporated milk (which is thicker than normal milk and can be fat-free), thicken it with cornstarch, add in some roasted mushrooms, and season with plenty of black pepper. It’s lower in salt and calories, less processed, and super easy. 

With Brussels sprouts, roast them or put them in your air fryer with a little bit of balsamic vinegar or maple syrup on top. 

And then, I would say, serve a big salad. Salads take up a lot of room in your stomach. They take a long time to eat. So again, think about healthy things you can add to the table instead of trying to swap out your family favorites.

On to beverages. When it comes to alcohol, how much is enough?

Wood: A lot of people go awry with booze in the holiday season, whether it’s at a holiday work party, or the dinner table, or afterwards. We need to think about the alcohol choices we make and try to keep it to one drink a day for women or two for men. Limiting alcohol cuts back on that awful, bloated feeling and helps us keep better control over our eating habits. 

Then think about the type of alcohol you drink. There’s a big difference between a big, heavy beer or a sugary cocktail compared to one nice ounce of bourbon by the fire or a glass of wine with dinner. Keep it light. For a bubbly treat, go for something like a prosecco brut, which is dry and low in sugar.

Which brings us to desserts and sweets.

Wood: They’re all delicious, but let’s face it, they’re also all loaded with sugar or cream or both.

How can we mitigate the damage?

Wood: Think about ways you can add whole fruits or vegetables into desserts. It’s a harm-reduction strategy. A chocolate pie won’t be as good for you as an apple pie. Or a pumpkin pie, which is a vegetable. That’s step one.

Step two is one of my favorite tips. When you’re baking, use white whole-wheat flour. Normal all-purpose flour is made from red wheat, and they refine it down, and it becomes all-purpose flour. It’s not great for us. Everyone’s had traditional whole-wheat flour, too, which is also made from red wheat. It’s dense and doesn’t bake very well and has a strong flavor. But there’s a separate variety of wheat called “white wheat.” It’s a whole-grain flour that’s very tender. It doesn’t have much flavor, so you can cook with it like all-purpose flour. And it’s 100% whole-grain. It offers a lot of extra fiber and extra nutrients.

Lastly, don’t forget the old tip of using applesauce to replace up to half the oil in a baking recipe. If you’re making a brownie mix or a cake mix from a box, it works really well. Another great, easy dessert go-to is angel food cake. It has sugar, but it’s fat-free and has some protein from the egg whites. And what do you put on top? Fruit. And then maybe just a little whipped cream and a touch of lime zest for pizzazz.

Finally, what about those salty snacks everyone loves before and after dinner?

Wood: Popcorn can be a good choice. You don’t have to buy the microwave bag with all the artificial stuff in it. You can pop it yourself in the microwave. And then spritz on avocado oil, or dredge in a little bit of butter or one of those healthy oils we talked about earlier. That way you control the level and quality of fat and salt.

People think of pretzels as healthy, but they’re basically just white flour and salt. Opt instead for a baked chip or a corn tortilla chip, which is a whole grain. You can cut fat and salt by making your own in the air fryer or oven with just some oil and corn tortillas. Add salsa or guacamole, both very healthy, fiber- and antioxidant-rich options.

Nuts are another good option, especially if you crack them yourself. I think people like to sit around the fire and crack nuts and chat. And when you go through all the effort to crack and peel them, you end up eating less overall compared to just taking a couple of big handfuls. Nuts and seeds are super health-promoting, and none of us eat enough of them.

Download a printable PDF of Nate Wood’s healthier eating strategies and swaps.