How do you fight a food industry that adds sugar (high fructose corn syrup), salt (often paired with monosodium glutamate--MSG) and fat (oils) to just about everything with a label? And when eating out, there is no label at all. Here are a few suggestions to help you reduce your caloric intake without altering your lifestyle. One of the easiest ways to eat better is to read labels--the more ingredients and additives that are listed, the greater the chance of increased calories.

If you like sauce or gravy on everything, use a little known thickener called arrowroot. It allows you to avoid using milk, which is high in calories. Mix a tablespoon of arrowroot with two tablespoons of cool liquid before adding to hot foods or liquids. It can be used to thicken puddings, pies, soups, sauces and gravies. If you are afraid of reducing flavor, just add more spices.

Think lean when you buy your meat and cut off the extra fat. Consider removing the skin from chicken, before you eat it. Sometimes lean meat can taste like cardboard. Slow cooking and lots of spices is the answer. In the case of not-so-lean ground beef, try draining off the fat. My spaghetti begins by adding spices to ground beef, cooking it on medium in a skillet, draining off the grease and then adding more spices, before pouring in the tomato sauce. When using ground beef for a Crockpot chili or stew, I use the same procedure.

Keep plain, fat-free yogurt on hand instead of sour cream for those baked potatoes. Add chives or other herbs for flavor. If you love yogurt for a snack or dessert, reduce your calories and your refined sugar intake by buying plain, fat-free yogurt and adding your own fresh fruit and berries to it.

Control your waistline and your pocketbook by watching what you drink. It is time to give non-alcoholic beer at your liquor store another chance. (Grocers and restaurants do not often carry the good stuff.) Some near beers have a surprisingly robust flavor with almost half the calories as real beer. And if you want to drop some pounds quickly, reduce the frequency or size of that daily glass of wine. When dining out, drink water instead of pop. It will save you 100-150 calories per twelve ounces. Even if you drink diet soda, having water instead will save you quite a bit of money.

Use a butter equivalent and reduce your dessert calories by more than a third. When baking, you need at least 60% fat content to ensure good results. I almost never use real butter in my cookies, even when it says no substitutes. (And somehow those cookies get eaten.)

Perhaps the best way to control those calories is to avoid eating out so much. You will eat healthier when you start reading labels, and you will save a bundle.