(ARA) – Deep-fried chicken wings, potato skins, chips and dip, and pizza dripping with cheese and pepperoni – a glance at the average Super Bowl Sunday party menu may leave you thinking the event should actually be called “Cholesterol-Bowl.”

The extra calories consumed by the average American on the nation’s number one sports holiday probably won’t send you into cardiac arrest. But it still makes sense to think about lightening the cholesterol load on Super Bowl Sunday.

While you may consider substituting baked chips for trans fat-filled fried ones, sensible sports snacking doesn’t necessarily mean replacing wings with celery sticks. You can fry foods with less cholesterol and no trans fats, plus add a punch of nutrition, by finding alternatives to vegetable oil. Palm oil is an alternative that is gaining popularity in America for its relative health benefits and flavor-enhancing qualities.

Restaurants across the country are turning to healthier trans-fat free alternatives such as palm oil as more local governments mandate the elimination of trans fats from their menus. Chances are you’ve already dined in one that uses trans-fat free alternatives such as palm oil. In fact, outside the United States, palm oil is the most widely used cooking oil.

“You can substitute trans-fat free palm oil for any other type of oil or shortening in your favorite Super Bowl Sunday recipes,” says Salleh Kassim of the American Palm Oil Council. “Simply use a one-to-one ratio. If your recipe calls for you to fry in a cup of vegetable oil, just substitute a cup of palm oil.”

Unlike other alternative oils such as olive, palm oil has no flavor of its own and preserves the flavor of whatever you’re cooking. And since palm oil has a high quantity of antioxidants, it is very stable when heated, and is actually better for frying than oils like soy or canola, which smoke at high heat.

Finally, using palm oil to cook your chicken wings or other favorite Super Bowl snack will at least boost the amount of good (HDL) cholesterol in your recipe. “Increased HDL is linked to decreased risk of heart disease, and it cancels out the increased risk associated with elevated bad (LDL) cholesterol,” Kassim says.

You’ll also get an added nutritional punch; palm oil contains powerful antioxidants like tocotrienols, beta-carotene and vitamins A and E. Antioxidants are known to combat free radicals – the biological waste product that speeds the aging process. So by using palm oil in your Super Bowl party prep, you may actually find yourself feeling younger on post-Super Bowl Monday!

Courtesy of ARAcontent.