CHAPTER THREE-CHICKEN FOR DIETERS
Are you concerned about the cholesterol in your diet?
Are you watching calories and trying to cut down on fat?
Has your doctor suggested that you consume less salt?
Then read on. The wonderful thing about chicken is that the low cholesterol and the low calorie recipes are the same. And the flavors that add spark to a low calories recipe are the same ones that can help you get along with little or no salt.
Chicken is the dieter's ray of sunshine. Except for turkey breast, no other popular meat is as low in calories as skinless chicken breast. A 3-ounce portion of skinless broiled chicken breast has only 115 calories. An equivalent size portion of cooked lean trimmed beef would average 189 calories, and cooked lean, trimmed pork is 198 calories.
Chicken is also lowest in saturated fat compared with non-poultry meats.
Grams of Saturated Fat
Cooked 3-ounce portion skinless chicken breast: 0.4
Average cooked 3-ounce portion of chicken: 1.1
Average cooked 3-ounce portion of lean, trimmed beef: 3.4
Average cooked 3-ounce portion of lean, trimmed pork: 3.8
To avoid both fat and calories when cooking with chicken:
_Choose breast meat. This is the leanest part of the bird and has less than half the fat of, for example, thigh meat. Because of its low fat content, it's the only meat I ever serve Frank, and it's the only meat he ever asks for in restaurants.
_Remove the skin. Forty percent of the fat in poultry is attached to the skin and therefore can be easily removed. This is in contrast with other meats, where the fat is dispersed throughout the meat and not so easily removed. One point, though. If you're broiling or baking or grilling chicken, leave the skin on until you're finished cooking; otherwise the meat will lose too much moisture and become tough. I've watched tests done at the Perdue Tenderness Laboratory in which they measured the tenderness of breast meat roasted with the skin and without the skin. The meat cooked with the skin retained its moisture and was startlingly more tender than the meat cooked without the skin.
_Roast, broil, poach, or grill chicken instead of frying it.