Healthy ways to flavour food

G-Money

I need to get my cholesterol down so I want to cut out the sauces and stuff I often use to flavour my dinners. The problem is I don't know what else to use to give the things some taste.

I have a variety of dried spices and powders and I used to use them but now I'm wondering about the salt content in them and whether it's too high. With those powders they often don't have much in the way of nutrional info.

Any ideas who to healthily flavour food?

SBWife

Fresh herbs
Chili
Citrus fruits
Garlic
Pepper

careca11

well take the example of Spagetti bolognese.
make it from tin of Chopped tomato, an onion, Garlic x2, 2 grated carrots , 90ml's of chicken stock , your mince and basil leaves.

as healthy as you can get.
fresh fruit and veg really is the best way to go

as for dried spices , like ground coriander, chilli powder etc ..................most of them have nothing at added.

a bowl of porridge with mashed banana and dash of honey every morning for a couple of weeks won't be long reducing your Cholestoral

G-Money

I've started just taking raw porridge oats mixed with a low fat yoghurt. I don't like porridge how it's usually made.

seamus

G-Money wrote: »

I have a variety of dried spices and powders and I used to use them but now I'm wondering about the salt content in them and whether it's too high. With those powders they often don't have much in the way of nutrional info.

Dried/powdered spices rarely contain more than they say on the bottle, so they'll rarely have any salt added to them unless it's a particular spice mix.

General rule is to avoid any sauce that comes in a jar or a tin. They often have a cream and/or cheese base, sometimes with a little oil in there to back it up.

They're bloody delicious but that's because they're loaded with fats & sugars.

Packet sauces (i.e. ones you mix with water) are a good bit better, but best overall are sauces made from scratch. Tinned chopped tomatoes and passata are the best to use for a tomato base because they (usually!) have nothing but tomatoes.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a cream or cheese sauce made by yourself - they will usually be lower calorie than an equivalent jar of sauce and you can choose to use your own low fat alternatives in it.

If the raw porridge oats with yoghurt are working for you in the morning, then stick with it. If you're finding it a bit boring, then a sugar free Muesli is a tastier option, though preferably with milk rather than yoghurt.

G-Money

I usually take a low fat yoghurt with cereal as I hate the way milk makes cereal all soggy. The yoghurt softens it a bit but not too much.

Mellor

Named herbs and spices are just that, no salt. Perfect for adding calorie free flavour.
Things like aromat, mixed-spices, barbeque, cajun and other generic names oftenr have alt as one of the name ingredients, but you aren't using huge quantities. Avoid if you want. i avoid, only because I want to buy "pure" spice, stronger flavour etc

G-Money

Mellor wrote: »

Named herbs and spices are just that, no salt. Perfect for adding calorie free flavour.
Things like aromat, mixed-spices, barbeque, cajun and other generic names oftenr have alt as one of the name ingredients, but you aren't using huge quantities. Avoid if you want. i avoid, only because I want to buy "pure" spice, stronger flavour etc

I do have a few mixed spices like Cajun, BBQ, Thai 7 spice and curry powder and they do have some salt in them I think.

huskerdu

I wouldn't worry too much about the salt content of mixed spices, you only use a little.

The salt content of processed foods is very high. Once you are cooking your own food, the small amount of salt that you use is much lower than if you are buying anything processed.

Cooking a meal, instead of buying processed saves money, cuts calories and tastes much better. Keep up the good work.