Diary

Choose skim milk or low-fat buttermilk. Substitute evaporated skim milk for cream in recipes for soups and sauces.

Try low-fat cheeses. Skim ricotta can replace cream cheese on a bagel or in a vegetable dip. Use part-skim cheeses in recipes. Use 1% cottage cheese for salads and cooking. String cheese is a low-fat, high-calcium snack option.

Plain nonfat yogurt can replace sour cream in many recipes. (To maintain texture, stir 1 tablespoon of cornstarch into each cup of yogurt that you use in cooking.) Try mixing frozen nonfat or low-fat yogurt with fruit for dessert.

Skim sherbet is an alternative to ice cream. Soft-serve and regular ice creams are also lower in fat than premium styles.

Instead of this:

Try this:

Whole or 2% milk

Skim or 1% milk

Evaporated milk

Evaporated skim milk

Regular buttermilk

Buttermilk made from skim (or 1%) milk

Yogurt made with whole milk

Nonfat or low-fat yogurt

Regular cheese (examples: American, blue, Brie, cheddar, Colby and Parmesan)

Low-fat cheese with less than 3 grams of fat per serving (example: natural cheese, processed cheese and nondairy cheese such as soy cheese)

Regular cottage cheese

Low-fat, nonfat, and dry-curd cottage cheese with less than 2% fat

Regular cream cheese

Low-fat cream cheese (no more than 3 grams of fat per ounce)

Regular ice cream

Sorbet, sherbet and nonfat or low-fat ice cream (no more than 3 grams of fat per 1/2 cup serving)