Never Say Diet Resort Offers Surprisingly Tasty Alternatives To High-Fat Food

Can you imagine announcing to your family that you have seen the light - spa food lite, that is - and you are going to cook all low-fat from now on?

Yeah, right.

Spa food quite often consists of large, healthy quantities of uncooked vegetables and other generally unappealing ingredients. You can survive on it for a week, but once you go home from your trip to the health spa, it’s back to the old eating patterns, especially if you have kids.

One spa takes a different approach, however, by serving up friendlier recipes that pair the ‘90s trends of low-fat cooking and feel-good food.

The Green Valley Spa & Tennis Resort in St. George, Utah, features hearty foods that look and often taste a lot like the creamier, fatty originals - from muffins to twice-baked potatoes to burritos. While all the dishes are healthy and low in fat, the word “diet” is never uttered. There’s no weighing-in here. No food that resembles cardboard.

“We started off eight years ago with Spartan food for weight loss,” says Alan Coombs, a laid-back Utah native who owns the spa with wife Carol. “In those times, it didn’t have to taste good; guests were here to lose weight and suffer.”

That reasoning didn’t last long. Coombs quickly realized the whole concept had to loosen up. He brought in a consulting chef to improve recipes and threw out the concept of deprivation.

“The key to weight loss is to never feel hunger,” Coombs believes now.

When Janice Coon was named Green Valley’s head chef, she was at the same time feeding her two teenagers at home. Her response to the question of who is pickier, the children or the spa guests, will not surprise mothers: It’s children.

Spa guests paying more than $2,000 a week come to change their eating and exercise habits for the better, and they generally eat what’s set in front of them, she says. Her kids, however, would only eat healthy foods if they looked like the real old-fashioned variety.

They liked her muffins, lean turkey burgers, chicken pita sandwiches and whole-wheat vegetarian pizzas made with nonfat sauce. She began bringing home more and more recipes, and became more creative in adapting them for her children.

“This is being sneaky,” she says of one of her chief tricks. “But you don’t let the kids see the packages that say its fat-free yogurt or fat-free cream cheese. That works for husbands, too.”

One of her best desserts at the spa - and a big hit with the kids - was the simplest. Bananas are peeled and frozen, then run gradually through a processor or blender until they reach the texture of rich ice cream. Pureed frozen blueberries, with a touch of apple juice concentrate for sweetness, are poured on top to make a sundae.

To hide the fact that she reduces fat and salt in entrees, Coons takes cues from Southwestern and ethnic cooking and steps up flavorful seasonings like garlic, onion and hot sauce. A few recipes call for salty ingredients, like a soy marinade or sun-dried tomatoes, but she’ll add them with a light hand.

Coon knows that low-fat cooking begins in the grocery store, and she has a system for that as well. She offers individual grocery shopping instruction sessions to spa guests ($30 for an hour with her in the local supermarket) because some people are trying to break a lifetime of bad habits.

“They don’t know how to pick out a vegetable. A lot don’t know what jicama is,” Coon says, holding up the large root vegetable that is the color of a potato, has the texture of water chestnuts and is peeled and eaten raw.

Here is some of her best advice:

“Go right to produce. At least half your basket should come from that aisle.”

In produce, everything is allowed, even the occasional treat of an avocado. She calls vegetables “free food” because you can eat as much as you want.

Shop the perimeter (produce, meat, dairy) and skip aisles in the center (snacks, processed food, candy). “If you don’t go down those aisles, you’re not tempted.”

If the kids want snacks, she recommends fruit leather, dried fruit, Tostitos baked chips, nonfat pretzels and frozen yogurt.

Once home, take 15 minutes right away to wash and chop snacking vegetables, she advises. “Later, when you’re hungry, you’ll have it ready. You don’t have to take the time to peel a carrot.”

The “fat-free” label on foods is “not a ticket to eat it all. Usually these foods are high in calories.” Looking at the nutrition label on a box of nonfat cereal, Coon says: “It has 14 grams of sugar per serving. That’s too much.” She picks one with 4 grams of sugar, which she says is acceptable.

To determine if a product contains too much fat, Coon uses an easy rule of thumb: “For every 100 calories, it’s OK to have 2 grams of fat.” If a food has more, it goes back on the shelf. (A food with 2 grams of fat in 100 total calories would have only 18 calories from fat, or 18 percent of its total - well below the recommended 30 percent or less.)

Chicken Pita Sandwiches

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (4 ounces each)

1 cup soy sauce

1 cup water

Cajun Dust or other Cajun seasoning (often found in meat or condiment aisle)

2 tablespoons prepared mustard

2 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon Quick Thick (found in health food stores; you can substitute 1 teaspoon cornstarch, but note change in recipe method below)

6 pita breads

1/2 cucumber, peeled and diced

1/2 red onion, diced

1 sweet red pepper, diced

1 tomato, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1/2 head green leaf lettuce, shredded

Wash and trim any fat from chicken. Place chicken in soy sauce and 1 cup water while preparing vegetables.

Remove chicken from marinade and sprinkle with Cajun seasoning. Place on baking pan and cover with foil. Bake at 450 degrees 13 minutes or until done. Cut into 1/4-inch strips.

To prepare dressing, mix mustard, 2 tablespoons water and honey and whisk together. Add Quick Thick. (If substituting cornstarch, whisk all ingredients together in saucepan. Bring to boil and cook 1 minute. Let cool.)

Spray grill with vegetable cooking spray and grill pita bread. Place some chicken, cucumber, onion, red pepper, tomato, celery and lettuce in strip down center of each pita, drizzle dressing on top and fold in sides. Or, place ingredients inside pita pockets.

Yield: 6 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 350 calories, 6 grams fat (15 percent fat calories).

Almond-Poppy Seed Muffins

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1 cup oat flour (if not available, use all whole-wheat flour or pulverize 1-1/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats in food processor)

2 tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2/3 cup slivered almonds

1 cup nonfat plain yogurt

1/2 cup applesauce

1/3 cup egg whites

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon honey

Mix together flours, baking powder, baking soda and almonds in large bowl.

Stir together yogurt, applesauce, egg whites, poppy seeds and honey in separate bowl. Add to dry ingredients, mixing only until moistened.

Spoon into 12 greased muffin cups. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.

Yield: 12 muffins.

Nutrition information per serving: 180 calories, 3 grams fat (15 percent fat calories).

Twice-Baked Potatoes

6 potatoes, baked

1 cup plain yogurt

1/4 cup nonfat cream cheese

1/4 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon prepared horseradish

1/4 cup chopped green onions

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Paprika

Slice baked potatoes in half lengthwise. Spoon out pulp into bowl. Mix with yogurt, cream cheese, garlic, horseradish, green onions and parsley. Spoon mixture back into shells. Sprinkle top with paprika. Bake at 350 degrees 15 minutes.

Yield: 6 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 253 calories, 3 grams fat (11 percent fat calories), 95 milligrams sodium.