UNION SPRINGS - There is no denying that the cornucopia of foods, from succulent turkey to creamy mashed potatoes, to the sweet delicious pies, are one of the best parts of the holiday season.

But with Thanksgiving just around the corner, the thoughts of many will turn to more than just how delicious the food can be to the price of eating all those rich foods.

But at Union Springs Seventh-Day Adventist Church a few healthier, low-fat alternatives were put up for consideration recently when the church hosted the latest in a series of discussions and presentations on healthier eating alternatives, focusing on vegetarian and plant based ideas.

Elaine Holdren, who has helped organize these discussions for the past several weeks, said that she recently heard about the work of Dr. Neal Barnard, who has been studying and writing on the impact and benefits of a plant based diet.

“We saw this as a way to help the community,” Holdren said. “We wanted to look at Thanksgiving, but look at it from a low-fat, high fiber, low sugar, low cholesterol perspective.”

Holdren said that it has been found that there are a lot of advantages to eating a healthier diet, advantages that impact all areas of life, from just general health to other factors like mental well-being.

“Eating a plant based diet can help with things like diabetes,” Holdren said. “But it can also help fight things like depression and just make you feel better when you eat healthier and with a more well rounded approach.”

During the presentation, Jane Kurtz, a registered dietitian and registered nurse, spoke a little on the subject of healthy eating habits, focusing in on what she called the rainbow of foods.

Kurtz said that it is important to have a variety of foods to get all the healthy benefits that they can offer. These strategies, Kurtz believes, can be incorporated into Thanksgiving.

“Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday,” Kurtz said. “And it is a perfect way to talk about how to eat the rainbow of foods.”

Kurtz said that it is recommended to have five servings of fruits and vegetables a day and that a serving is considered half a cup of cooked fruits or vegetables or a whole cup of fresh or raw.

She explained that incorporating these ideas into a diet have many benefits, from increased vitamins and other nutrients to antioxidants, which despite becoming a popular buzz word of late, Kurtz said, is still something not everyone understands.

Essentially antioxidants help to keep the body in balance, giving the example of a molecule, Kurtz said.

She continued by saying molecules lose their electrons and this leads to an imbalance and mutation, which can lead to things like cancer.

But antioxidants help to maintain balance by replacing lost electrons, thus preventing oxidation, essentially rust, to the molecules that make up the human body.

This can be achieved by eating more of the rainbow of foods.

Kurtz pointed to foods that represent the colors of the rainbow, from the vibrant yellows of things like squash to green leafy vegetables like spinach and broccoli, to oranges and even grapes, all of which help to restore and maintain balance in the body.

To help give a real idea of the possibilities of what is available as healthy vegetable based alternatives to the standard Thanksgiving meal, Steve Millahn, a volunteer cook, prepared a number of dishes with this in mind.

From a vegetable cutlet to whole wheat pie crust, there are many alternatives.

“We just want to help people be able to make some healthy changes,” Holdren said. “These are just some ways they can do something to help them eat a little healthier.”