In the last few months, I've been making dietary changes in an effort to eat more healthily -- more fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, less senseless fat and grease.

One of the things that has been problematic for me is my love for meatloaf, hamburgers, and meatballs. All of these things are typically made with cheap (and fatty) meat, and yet, are so comforting. Swapping out the beef for turkey or chicken definitely helps with the caloric issues, but It Just Doesn't Taste The Same, and sometimes, what you really want is that comforting taste from home, the beef. After many experiments, I have finally found something that saves the ground beef! It really was obvious, I don't know why I couldn't think of it on my own, especially given in my days of vegetarianism, I often used mushrooms as a meat substitute.

Swapping out 1/3 of the meat for cooked minced mushrooms, adding more diced vegetables, and swapping out bread crumbs for steel cut oats are all things that go for the good cause: switching to leaner meat (reducing the fat content and calories), increasing the grains (and better-for-you than pulverized white bread), and adding all sorts of vegetables ends up making meatloaf healthier without sacrificing the texture or flavor is great! And I'll be honest: as good as my mom's meatloaf was, this tastes better. (Sorry, mom!)

According to the magazine whose recipe I based this off of, the ground chuck/ground pork/bread version has 440 calories and 30 grams of fat per portion and their version (which has less vegetables - I've marked my additions in the ingredient list) has 268 calories and 12 grams of fat.


Since trying this out, I've tried swapping out 1/3 of the meat for cooked minced mushroom in meatballs and hamburgers, and it's worked out really well. As well, grinding the oats down (to be as fine as the bread was) makes the oats a fairly good substitute for bread crumbs in meatballs, as well.