I like fries!!! Just like most people, I like fries. I like cheese. I like good burgers. I like chicken wings and the hotter the better. I like red wine. As humans we tend to like all the things that are the least healthy for us. However, this is one of the reasons we were blessed with acute mental capabilities. We learn to exercise self-control. We learn that in order to maintain good health we need to make sacrifices. We learn that we are what we eat and make choices that reflect this. In my journey to find healthier fries I came up with these wonderfully seasoned, oven baked, homemade fries. Gone are the days of deep fried greasy fries. These healthier homemade fries use only one tablespoon of Avocado Oil and are then roasted in the oven until the insides are tender baked potatoes and the outside is crispy goodness. The best part about this is you can use whichever herbs are your favorite to season them. I like an Italian blend of herb and sometimes juice them up with some minced garlic. Oy! Such goodness and for just a fraction of the calories and fats that usually come with fries. What is not to love?
Health Benefits of Baked Fries
A typical serving of potato French fries contains as much as 275 calories and up, and 14 grams of fat. A simple, medium sized russet potato will have about 120 calories with less than 1 gram of fat. Just as a point of comparison, according to the Wendyís menu a small order of their fries contain 290 calories. McDonalds indicate on their website that a small order of fries contain 230 calories with 11 grams of fat. Did I mention these were just for a SMALL order of their fries? Now I get that for a lot of people McDonalds are the holy grail of French fries. But that is just because they have never tried these healthier, homemade, seasoned fries. You can cut these potatoes as fat or as thin as you like. Put them in a bowl with a tablespoon of oil, the seasonings of your choice, toss to coat and put them in the oven to create magic. Itís as easy as that.
Place potato sticks into a medium bowl. Add remaining ingredients and toss to coat.
Transfer Fries to a parchment lined baking sheet and bake 30 minutes or until the center is soft and edges are crispy.
Keeping your Homemade Fries Healthier
As a final note there is one more thing I would like to point out. An extremely large amount of potatoes today are cultivated using genetic engineering. The FDA has apparently been unable to find any issues with human consumption of genetically modified foods. However, due to their relative newness, there is no long term data available to determine the effects of eating foods that have been genetically modified. For this reason, I only eat organically grown potatoes. Another plus to eating organic potatoes is that you are able to eat the skin. Most of the valuable nutrition comes from a potatoes skin. But if they are not organic then they have probably been grown with the assistance of pesticides, which renders the potato less healthy. For more information on genetically modified foods, read this article or sign up for my newsletter and receive our free e-book on genetically modified organisms.
