I know, y'all don't eat "diet foods," you eat "real food," right? yeah, me too.
I'm not talking about Jenny Craig meals and protein shakes - I mean lower calorie versions of "real food," like low-fat milk. Sometimes the whole concept is silly (what on earth is "fat free half and half?" Half WHAT?). But other times the lower calorie version tastes just as good or better.

Two new discoveries that I like a lot:
* 4-oz applesauce cups: Mott's Lite Cinnamon. The "normal" applesauce not only has twice the calories, it's just way too sweet for me. Unsweetened applesauce sounds healthy, but it's too sour. This one has a little bit of artificial sweetener but they didn't overdo it - just right!

* Joseph's Flax, Oat Bran and Whole Wheat Flour low carb pita bread. I don't know quite how they worked the magic on this one, but if the label doesn't lie, each one of these fluffy little pitas has only 60 calories, 8 total carbs and 4 g fiber. They're made of actual grain products, not sawdust: I don't know how they achieved those numbers. They don't have a whole lot of flavor, but the texture is GREAT. I've been stuffing them with leftovers, chicken and avocado, spinach salad, and stuff like that for lunch. I like the texture a lot better than the whole wheat pitas, which get dry and crumbly.

I also like reduced-fat ricotta cheese. Fat-free is flavorless, but I think I like the reduced fat version better than full-fat, which is kind of tallowy.

Anybody have a favorite diet food that's maybe even better than the original?

HOnestly I don't eat a whole lot of "diet foods" or "lite" foods because all that they're doing is substituting chemicals or sugar or artificial ingredients in order to try to create the same taste or mouthfeel. And in general I think that they fail miserably.

I personally would rather have a smaller amount of the real thing, than the lite version. At least for most things.

And honestly it's not "real food" snobbery on my part because god knows I drink Diet Coke and I use at least one variety of "lite" salad dressing. I just genuinely don't like the taste or textures of most diet foods.

I think the only exception to that is 2% yogurt - I like the 2% better than the full fat because the full fat is almost *too* rich.

The only 'diet' food I eat is Leerdamer Light cheese, simply because I prefer the taste. Other than that, diet soda of any kind over the sugary version. I don't think I really eat any diet stuff otherwise....I do occasionally substitute meals with Weight Watchers ready meals, not because they are WW, but because they taste okay (some of them anyway). But that's only if I don't have the time to make anything myself.

I actually try and avoid artificial sweeteners in food & beverages (with the exception of chewing gum). I will go for lower fat versions of things though. I always buy skim milk, which works fine for me (except for in coffee - blech!! Must have creamo!! lol)

I generally don't like the taste of diet stuff either (except for diet roobeer! awesome stuff), I've worked my way down to skim milk from 2% too.

When I cook dinner I generally try to find things that are a little lighter in calories and less fat, I like burgers so I started making them out of lean ground turkey from a recipe I found on AllRecipes.com

@TenGone I agree with you on the coffee, I have to have creamer too.

I like unsweetened applesause with SweetLeaf liquid stevia, English toffee flavor and cinnamon! I also have tested other flavored stevia from SweetLeaf on plain yogurt--lemon drop, English toffee, orange valencia, and vanilla creme, and it was good! (again the quantity was not much-- I only tested it) I'm also a skim milk gal!

I eat mostly low fat yogurt and 35 calorie bread and lean meats such as chicken or turkey. I also drink diet green tea. Snapple makes a diet green tea in peach flavor which I find tastes great.

Fiber is a component of some foods. It's the indigestible part of these foods - vegetables, fruits, and grains. Since it doesn't get digested, it provides bulk that helps move things through your digestive tract.

But one of the things you have to realize is that food isn't ever just one thing. Most foods have multiple nutrients - more or less of some kinds than others.

All plant foods have fiber to some degree or another: but those foods will also have a measure of carbs, protein, fats, etc. In general foods that are higher in complex carbs are also going to be higher in fiber.

i personally prefer the weight watcher meals cos it is easy to prepare and they taste pretty good for a health food

Yodasmith, that sounds really good. I wasn't aware of the flavored liquid Stevia. Can you buy it in a regular supermarket? I've gotten hooked on Greek yogurt (so tasty that even the fat-free version tastes rich) but I would like just a little bit of sweetener added.

I eat Smart Ones, frozen meals. I think they taste good. One of my main eating problems is eating too large of portions. So by eating these I'm not over eating. Right now, new into my "dieting" this is exactly what I need.

Oh yeah, I thought of another diet food that I find well worth buying: sugar free pancake syrup.

I adore buckwheat pancakes, and the best buckwheat pancake mixes are full of healthy whole grains and seeds. Yummy and so good for you, and really quick to make. But no matter how much I convinced myself that I liked pancakes perfectly well with applesauce instead of syrup, it just wasn't true. And even a couple of tablespoons of syrup really piles on the empty calories.

I thought diet syrup would taste terrible, so i never bought it. But somebody else in my household did. And guess what - I couldn't even tell the difference! So now it's a staple in my cupboard. And I eat my pancakes with applesauce or fruit, a spoonful of plain Greek yogurt, and a little sugar free syrup. Mmmm. I'm making myself hungry.

Um...you should be able to get it at places like Whole Foods, etc probably any natural food store. You might want to look in the natural foods section of your local grocer. You could get it online, if their website is up--www.sweetleaf.com Good luck in your search!

I have to say, just today I baked for the first time with stevia,and it turned out great! I baked chocolate chip cookies! For me, this is a big deal! I used one paket of SweetLeaf (can you tell I like this brand?) powder with added inulin fiber and about 1 T of SweetLeaf's liquid vanilla creme flavored stevia instead of vanilla. I was a little nervous as I know how sweet stevia is, and didn't want to put too much stevia in it--I've heard horror stories of those that did just that and they had to throw everything away, but it was great and I would totally use this recipe again! With ingredients like stevia, unsweetened applesauce, almond butter, whole wheat flour, these were acutally pretty healthy--for cookies!