Food Fight

Janis Fite's kitchen is always alive. Water boils on the stove, tempting aromas escape from the oven and entice the taste buds, while the hum of the microwave adds noise to the busy kitchen. Fite craves rich sauces, sweet desserts, and spicy entrees. Because of her love for these foods, she has spent immeasurable time in the kitchen, cooking and tasting, experimenting with tasty low-fat alternatives to her favorite foods.

Janis Fite promotes healthful eating with her Fite for your Life cookbook and videos and through classes that she teaches. Sample Recipes from the Fite for Your Life Cookbook

Using her imagination, she prepares recipes with a new twist and shares these creations with anyone interested in better eating habits, mainly through her cookbook, Fite for Your Life.

"I want to get people away from the feeling that they're in jail when it comes to healthy eating," says Fite (Knoxville '69), who lives in Jackson, Tennessee. She has spent the past 10 years teaching people to make healthy choices while eating their favorite foods. Her cookbook features low-fat, high-fiber recipes and has been endorsed by doctors, fitness experts, and chefs such as Louis Borochaner, executive pastry chef of the Cloister Hotel in Sea Island, Georgia. Fite became interested in a health-ier diet after reading articles about low-fat eating. She found few low-fat foods available in stores, so she began experimenting with low-fat cooking. Interested in losing a little weight, she gradually shed 22 pounds, amazing friends who did not see her eating less.

Fite's UTK bachelor's degree was in health and physical education. In 1977 she earned a nursing degree from Union University. With her nursing background, she knew about making food exchanges and knew which low-fat foods successfully replace foods higher in fat content. Exploring for herself, she discovered that making creative low-fat substitutions was fun.

Soon Fite's friends began asking questions about her new eating habits. She received so many phone calls that she made a fact sheet about a low-fat diet to send people with questions. She also began helping her friends adapt their recipes to low-fat dishes.

In 1989 she started her own business, Choices Unlimited Inc. She taught a one-month class called "A Practical Approach to a Lifestyle of Eating High-Fiber, Low-Fat Foods." Unlike regular diet programs, her program didn't tell people what to eat, but told them what foods to avoid. She stressed alternative choices and taught how to stay away from high-fat foods such as butter, sour cream, mayonnaise, and cheese.

"They were making their own choices," says Fite, who yearned to make her program a positive approach to healthy eating and living. "Diets can sound monotonous, but this program allows for losing weight without going hungry." She says her chief focus is to promote healthy eating to prevent poor health. People gain weight and become unhealthy eaters because they don't realize the creativity that can go with low-fat eating, she says. "I'm trying to expand their world, not narrow it." Fite described a woman in her class whose love for coconut was overwhelming. She found that she could shred water chestnuts and soak them in coconut flavoring to make a low-fat coconut alternative. The invention even fooled her family.

Fite never specifies a number of fat grams to be eaten per day. Instead, she recommends resisting foods with more than one gram of fat per piece, per portion, or per serving, except for main dishes, which should have no more than eight to ten grams of fat per serving.

"If you tell them how many grams they are allowed per day, then you would have people skipping breakfast and snacking on a Snickers during the day. This doesn't work because they're still choosing unhealthy foods," Fite says.

Fite's younger daughter, Shannon, took her mother's class and learned to change her eating habits. She learned how low-fat choices result in gradual weight loss and healthy eating habits.

"Cheeseburgers and fries don't tempt me anymore, because I've gotten out of the habit of eating them," she says. She's proud of her mother, who she said puts all of her energy into teaching others how to make low-fat choices. "Now everyone is so geared to eating right, that it makes her program even better and more helpful."

Fite's family and friends became test-tasters for recipe possibilities for her cookbook, which was first published in 1990.

"I had more fun in fooling them," she says.

She developed the book not only to provide low-fat recipes, but also to show how to make low-fat substitutions, such as a "mock mayonnaise." The book contains special features such as a sauce section, offering recipes for rich sauces--such as gravy--without added fat. Fite also includes special occasion menus, which show readers how to make a low-fat Easter lunch or a ball game brunch. Fite for Your Life is easier to follow now that there are low-fat choices available at the stores.

"It's better to be consistent," says Fite. "When you splurge, you lose your creativity." She eats four pieces of cake per year, one piece for each of her family members' birthdays. She says if you have a sweet tooth you can still satisfy your cravings, but choose alternatives, like frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. The only food she specifically misses that she has yet to find a comparable substitute for is nuts.

Fite's greatest enjoyment comes in helping others adopt healthy eating habits. Besides her classes and lectures, she also developed a set of videos that teach a low-fat, high-fiber lifestyle. This allows her to go nationwide with the Choices Unlimited Inc. program.

Some of Fite's favorite low-fat dishes include pasta dinners, breakfast muffins, and desserts. But, she says, most people think they're limited when it comes to healthy eating.

"People don't realize that you can have pancakes that are low-fat," she says. "People need to have an abundant life, a joyous life. The last thing you should do is take the joy out of eating."

Sample Recipes from the Fite for Your Life Cookbook

1 cup corn flake crumbs
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground thyme
1/4 teaspoon red pepper
6 chicken breast halves, skinned
1/4 cup low-fat buttermilk

Combine first 6 ingredients in a plastic bag, mixing well. Brush both sides of chicken breasts with buttermilk. Place chicken in bag with crumb mixture, shaking to coat. Place chicken on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Bake, uncovered at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until done.

Fudge Cake Pie

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 heaping tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup Butter Buds liquid, prepared according to package directions
2 egg beaters (1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Nonfat vanilla ice milk

Spray pie pan with Pam. Mix all ingredients together and pour into pan. Cook at 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Top with scoop of vanilla ice milk.

Fite for Your Life is printed by Keepsake Cookbooks-Fundco Printers in Savannah, Tennessee, 1-800-426-9827.