Save Calories At Thanksgiving Dinner With This 1 Simple Swap

There are two ways to approach the Thanksgiving dinner table: Cast inhibitions aside and eat to your heart's content, or proceed with careful calculation and get the best bang for your caloric buck. There's nothing wrong with carefree eating — Thanksgiving only comes around once a year, after all — but if you're concerned with overeating this Thanksgiving, simply substituting mashed cauliflower for mashed potatoes will save you hundreds of calories (which you can save for later or allocate to an extra slice of pie).

Potatoes can be nutritious, too, when steamed or baked, but when they're mashed and loaded with milk and butter, their calorie count hits 237 per cup. A cup of cauliflower mashed with a little milk and Parmesan cheese measures only 108 calories per cup — and is loaded with vitamins C and B-6, dietary fiber, and potassium. Not only that, but whipping cauliflower florets into a smooth and velvety mash is easier than peeling, boiling, and pulverizing pounds of potatoes.

Don't believe me? Click here for a Cauliflower Mash recipe.