Guilt-Free Dipping

At last night’s “Big Game” par­ty, I thor­ough­ly enjoyed my friend Pat’s spinach dip, a clas­sic made with a pack­age of frozen spinach, a can of water chest­nuts, veg­etable soup mix, and some­thing white and fat­ten­ing, usu­al­ly sour cream or mayo. The dip is so pop­u­lar that the whole­sale ware­house store, Cost­co, even sells it in a quart con­tain­er! So should I bow to con­ve­nience and bring the ready-made ver­sion to our neigh­bor’s Mar­di Gras par­ty? The dietit­ian in me says no! By sub­bing thick­ened yogurt for sour cream or mayo, I can make an equal­ly deli­cious dip with a frac­tion of the calo­ries. I’ll either buy Greek-style yogurt, or make my own by putting plain low­fat or non­fat yogurt into a paper cof­fee fil­ter and let­ting the liq­uid whey drain out. They’ll nev­er know!