9 Tried-and-True Tips to Cut the Fat: * Cream soups with pureed cooked potato, not cream. * Prepare stuffing (homemade or packaged) with broth or applesauceinstead of some or even all of the fat. * Reduce the serving size without making it look like less: Pound meatsand chicken breasts or buy thin cutlets. * Combine meats if you can. Use half ground turkey, half ground beefin meat loaf and meatballs. * When browning meat for stew and pot roast, use a nonstick pan andonly 1 teaspoon oil. If you don't have a nonstick pan, spray pan lightly with cooking spray and heat, then add 1 teaspoon oil. * Cut back on the amount of Cheddar cheese a recipe calls for, and adda bit of Parmesan for flavor. Or take advantage of the fuller flavor of sharp Cheddar, but use a smaller amount than you would a mild Cheddar. * Replace half the mayonnaise in creamy dressings and dips with plainlow-fat or nonfat yogurt. Add herbs, mustard, horseradish or salsa to boost theflavor. * You may be able to substitute cocoa, which is fairly low in fat, for chocolate in some cakes and cookies. Add more liquid, if necessary, tomake the food moist.* Cut back on the nuts and chocolate in cakes and cookies.

Sweet Treats If you know where to look, you can even indulge in all sorts of sweetswithout feeling guilty about the fat: This This much much fatAngel food 1/2 of 0 gm cake a cakeGingersnaps 2 1 gm Cracker Jacks 1 box 3 gmChocolate syrup 2 Tbsp 0 gm Butterscotch 5 1 gm candies After 8 Mints 2 1.1 gmBanana 1 0 gm

THE LOW-FAT PANTRY Until they invent a low-fat potato chip that tastes like somethingother than stale cardboard, you're going to have to look elsewhere for low-fatfoods. It's not like hunting down the Holy Grail, however, and there areplenty of smart choices -- and even a few surprises -- out there.BreadButtermilkCocoa Fig barsGraham crackersOatmealPasta (but watch the sauces) Pickles and pickled vegetablesRye KrispsSalsa Tortilla chips (but only the baked variety) Regular strip bacon has as much as eight times the fat of Canadianbacon, which is a bit more expensive but certainly worth it. You don't have to deep-fry something to get a crispy coating. Bake it instead, but do so on a rack.It's Easier than You Think Don't be afraid of convenience foods, just prepare them using low-fat products. For packaged macaroni and cheese, for example, use skim milkand cut down the amount of fat called for. Trading Off Low fat doesn't have to mean less food -- quite to the contrary, itoften means more. For the sake of comparison, we asked a group of registered dietitians to show us just what you get for your fat:1 croissant = 10 bagels 1/4-pound fast-food cheeseburger = 3 fast-food grilled-chickensandwiches 1 cup premium vanilla ice cream = 28 ounces of large jelly beansThe Good News... There's never been a better time to cut back on fat. Manufacturers are flooding supermarkets with low-fat or nonfat versions of theirproducts, and at last you can actually believe the claims they make on the packages. With a little ingenuity, you can use their reduced-fat products to replacemost of the fat-laden ones you're accustomed to. Do it gradually and yourfamily might not even notice. And incidentally, studies have shown that themore fat you eat, the more you crave. If you can cut back on fat and stick toit, eventually you may not even miss it....And the Bad Fat lurks in strange places. Who would have thought that a harmlesslittle avocado could have as much fat as six Twinkies? Or that a carob bar,which sounds so sensible, is dripping with 28 grams of the stuff?

When youshop -- and especially when you snack -- be on the lookout for these high-fatsurprises: This much This much fat (in grams) Part-skim 1 oz 5 to 7 cheeses Microwave 3 cups 11 popcorn Seeds (sesame, 1 oz 14 sunflower etc.) Granola 1/2 cup 8 to 1Trading Up Before you dive into that cheese Danish, consider that a bagel with anounce of light cream cheese will save you roughly 10 grams of fat. Use yourhead and you can almost always find a better way: Buttered, oil-popped Air-popped popcorn SAVES 12 popcorn (2 cups) vs. (5 1/2 cups) GRAMS OF FAT Potato chips Pretzels SAVES 17 (2 ounces) vs. (2 3/4 ounces) GRAMS OF FAT Apple pie with Baked apple a la SAVES 23 4 oz ice cream vs. mode (1 lg apple GRAMS OF FAT (1/8 of a pie) baked with 1 tsp sugar and topped with 4 oz low-fat frozen yogurt) Peanut butter Apple butter SAVES 16 (2 tablespoons) vs. (2 tablespoons) GRAMS OF FAT

Prepared with the assistance of Lynne Hill, Hill Nutrition Associates,Inc., Stuart, Florida; Jennifer Stack, senior nutritionist at NYU MedicalCenter, New York City; Elizabeth Ward, Boston-based spokesperson for theAmerican Dietetic Association