Want to give your low-fat meals a big boost in taste and nutrients? Stock up on these tools and tips for flavorful low-fat cuisine.

Trimming the fat from your favorite recipes doesn't mean you have to short-change your taste buds. In fact, most low-fat cooking methods are packed with flavor--not to mention good nutrition.

Still, you don't want to banish all fat from your diet. You need some for your body to function at its finest. Fat aids in the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, protects organs from trauma, helps prevent heat loss and can be used as a source of fuel for the body. What's more, fat plays an essential role in many recipes by carrying flavor, tenderizing foods, adding moisture, and conducting heat. So, as you can see, it doesn't make culinary sense or health sense to trim all the fat, but cutting back does. After all, a high-fat diet has been linked to a whole host of health problems, including obesity, heart disease and cancer.

Before you get started, however, you need the right stuff--cooking tools, that is. Get a good quality set of nonstick sauce pans, skillets, and baking pans so you can cook just about anything without using any extra fat. Once you've stocked your kitchen with this low-fat cooking arsenal, you're ready to get cooking. Here are some simple tips:

Familiarize yourself with low-fat cooking techniques: Bake, broil, steam, grill, stir-fry or microwave foods.

Add herbs and spices: They add a lot of taste with practically no calories. Whether you use fresh or dried herbs, always crush them before adding to any recipe to release their full aroma.

Marinate: Whether it's vegetables, meat, poultry or fish, marinating adds enormous amounts of flavor. Make sure to marinate tofu--otherwise it has no taste.

Use an alternative to oil: You can use nonstick cooking spray or one to two tablespoons of defatted broth, water, juice, or wine to replace cooking oil. If you use nonstick sprays, choose those without hydrogenated oils.

Make healthier choices: If you need to use fat for a recipe, select a healthier one. That means replacing butter or shortening with heart-healthy oils, such as canola, olive, safflower or sunflower. Remember, it only takes a couple drops of flavorful oil, such as extra virgin olive oil, to go a long way, so use it sparingly.

Choose lean cuts of meat: Round, sirloin, and loin cuts are good picks. Even though they're lean, trim all visible fat before preparing them.

Remove skin from poultry before you eat: Cooking with the skin on will retain moisture and keep poultry tender; however, remove it before you eat--the fat content will be cut in half.

Skim your soups, stews and chili: This is a great way to get rid of some extra fat. Make it even easier by refrigerating them and then skimming off the solid fat that forms on the top.

Replace some of the fat in baked goods with applesauce, mashed bananas, or pureed prunes, pears, peaches or apricots: Fruit purees mimic many of the functions fat performs in baking, but not all. For this reason use a combination of fruit and fat. Halve the fat in the recipe and replace the other half with a fruit puree, which you can either make yourself or buy at the grocery store.

Substitute lower-fat ingredients for high-fat ones:

• Use evaporated skim milk or low-fat yogurt in place of heavy cream.
• Use 2 egg whites or ¼ cup of a liquid egg substitute in the place of 1 whole egg.
• Use 3 tablespoons cocoa powder and 1 tablespoon oil instead of baking chocolate.
• Use low-fat ricotta cheese or 1% cottage cheese instead of whole milk cream cheese or ricotta cheese.
• Use nonfat plain yogurt instead of sour cream.
• Use 1% milk instead of whole milk.
• Use nonfat yogurt or reduced fat mayonnaise instead of regular mayonnaise.
• Use diet margarine instead of regular.

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