Want to get the fat out of your Christmas dinner? Depending on your recipes and cooking methods, the traditional Christmas dinner can be as much as 2,000 calories and contain 80 to 100 grams a fat -- 43 percent fat! Here are some tips to help you lessen the calories and fat in your Christmas dinner.

Turkey is a low fat choice; however, fat is added to self basting turkeys! If you want a lower fat turkey, buy a fresh, unbasted one and trim away any extra fat.

Baste your turkey with broth, wine or fruit juice instead of fat or drippings.

Make your stuffing low fat by replacing most of the butter with chicken broth or replace the butter with "Butter Buds'' liquid -- a fat free butter flavouring.

Defat your drippings before you make your gravy. You can do this with a fat separator cup or put broth in the freezer so fat can harden -- just skim the fat off the broth before making your gravy.

Makeover your recipes with low-fat and fat-free ingredients such as fat-free cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, salad dressing and mayonnaise.

Use skim evaporated milk and reduced fat soups in your casserole dishes, such as macaroni cheese.

Make your peas'n rice with turkey chourico, it contains half the fat of regular chourico.

Use our reduced fat recipe for your cassava or farina pie.

Replace part or all of the butter, margarine or oil in your baked goods with applesauce or prune puree. Start by just substituting half the amount of fat in your recipe and try even more the next time. Check before recommended cooking time as these baked goods tend to cook more quickly.

Use phyllo pastry when a pie calls for pasty. To make phyllo pastry more flaky, spray with nonstick cooking spray like PAM.

Enjoy the flavour of a reduced fat Christmas! Betsy Baillie, RD Nutrition Services Department of Health CHRISTMAS FOODS Calorie and Fat Content Food Amount Cals. Fat Grams Crackers 4 60 4 Chips 10 115 9 Nuts, dry roasted 1 cup 210 16 Dip 1 tbsp 25-50 2 Cheese 1 oz 100 9 Vegetables, raw 1 cup 15-30 0 *Turkey (white meat) 3 1 oz 135 4 Turkey (light/dark & skin) 3 1 oz 195 8 Beef 3 1 oz 210 8 *Gravy 1 tbsp 40 3-4 *Cranberry Sauce 1 tbsp 30 0 *Scuffing 1 cup 198 12 *Roast potatoes in fat 3 1 oz 120 5 *String beans 1 cup 31 0 *Pumpkin 1 cup 33 0 *Butter 1 tbsp 100 12 *Roll 1 average 120 1 Salad (green) 1 cup 10 0 Salad dressing 1 tbsp 50-80 5-8 Fat free/Lite salad dressing 1 tbsp 10-45 0-2 *Cassava Pie ave. 1 piece 400-600 15-44 Lite Cassava Pie 1 piece 350 9 *Christmas Pudding 1 piece 470 20 *Hard sauce 2 tbsp 97 4 Fruit cake 1 oz 152 6 Mincemeat pie 1 piece 432 10 Cookie (average) 1 70 4 Fudge with nuts 1 oz 119 5 Hard candy (6 pieces) 1 oz 108 0 Egg Nog 4 oz (1 cup) 335 16 Soda 12 oz 150 0 *Wine 4 oz 85 0 Mixed drink (1 1 oz alcohol) 6 oz 150 0 GOOD FOOD! -- Christmas dinner with all the trimmings (the asterisked items) is between 1,900 and 2,100 calories and 85-100 grams of fat (43% Fat).

There are numerous fat reduced and fat free ingredients that can be used in your Christmas recipes to reduce the amount of fat and calories you consume.

Call Nutrition Services for copies of our reduced fat Christmas Recipes: Nutrition Services, Department of Health, 236-0224 ext 385 or 259