Ask Dr Nerenberg | Health and Fitness

Would this still make it unhealthy?

I love mac and cheese, dont get me wrong….but I HATE the nutrition facts on the side of a kraft mac and cheese box….lol.

“Macaroni and cheese” can be with lots of different ingredients, forms of those ingredients, total fat or calories in those ingredients, etc, etc. So yes, making it yourself can be much healthier than buying it processed, including not putting in a lot of the other ingredients like preservatives, colorants, fillers, etc.

You can make it at home with every bit of fat and calories of that particular brand though too, though you wouldn’t likely include the preservatives, etc.

Here are just some recipes for “healthier” mac and cheese (keep in mind that mac and cheese by definition has a lot of cheese in it, which isn’t all that healthy in the first place–though different amounts and types can be used, and smaller portions will have less cheese/etc too):

http://www.google.com/search?q=recipes+healthy+macaroni+and+cheese

http://www.google.com/images?q=recipes+healthy+macaroni+and+cheese

Some types/brands/etc of cheese are lower in fat too (and some can be “okay if no lower than 2%, or if mixed with regular cheeses) but some taste better than others.
You can also use whole grain pasta which will add things that are removed from regular pasta (or perhaps just add some wheat bran and wheat germ to the mac and cheese dish in general to replace them), but again some don’t taste and all as good and/or will have at least a slightly different mouth-feel than regular pasta.
You can also add more veggies and lowfat/lowcal ingredients to reduce the total amount of fat and calories you’d be eating (see recipes, but e.g., onions, celery, or anything you want to try).

There are even quite a few “gourmet” types of mac and cheese (many of those won’t skimp on the fat or calories though):

http://www.google.com/search?q=recipes+gourmet+macaroni+and+cheese

Anything is fine when trying to be healthy though as long as you don’t eat large portions and if you just don’t eat it very often.

Kraft: Macaroni and Cheese “I got the Blues”

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