Watching your weight is always a challenge, but if you keep kosher you may feel overwhelmed by the thought of having to change your eating habits. The good news is that there are many certified kosher diet products that are easy to integrate into your lifestyle.
Function
Kosher diet foods serve a triple function: they allow users to lose weight; continue to keep kosher; and avoid cooking from scratch for every meal.
Identification
The way to determine if a product is kosher is to look for a mark called a hechsher, which signifies that the product is under rabbinic supervision. The most widely accepted hechshers are the O-U and O-K. Fresh fruits and vegetables are always kosher and do not need a hechsher.
Packaged Diet Foods
Many national brands of diet foods have a hechsher, including Slim-Fast shakes, Weight Watchers baked goods, and Balance bars.
Prepared Diet Food Programs
Programs such as Kosher Diet Delivery (in New York) and Kosher Chefs Diet (in Los Angeles) can deliver fresh kosher diet food to your door every day, although the service is expensive ($40 to $45 per day, as of October 2009).
Home-Cooked Diet Foods
Try adapting your usual kosher recipes to be lighter. To make home-cooked kosher diet food, substitute egg whites (many brands are kosher) for whole eggs, and cut the amount of margarine in recipes. Splenda sweetener is kosher, and so can be used to lighten desserts or sweet kugels.
Tags: Diet Foods, diet food, diet foods, keep kosher, kosher diet food
