What to add to your meals to make them a bit more flavorful without added sugars or excess sodium? Here are a few tips:
1. Fruit: Fruit is an amazing addition to meals due its ability to provide sweetness naturally without added sodium or refined sugar and is moderate in calories. Try adding a handful of blueberries, pineapple or strawberries to your dishes. It really perks up a salad with a bit of brightness and flavor! Instead of using sugar to sweeten dishes, add a handful of fresh, frozen or a tablespoon or two of dried fruit.
2. Hot spices: If you like spicy food, adding a dash of red pepper flakes, hot/chili peppers, cayenne pepper, or chili powder can really improve the flavor of meals with zero calories and no added sodium.
3. Other spices: Whether it’s the spicy options listed above or garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, cinnamon or a variety of others, or spice blends and herbs are often sodium free and add flavor to meals with no calories. Remember onion and garlic powder have no sodium but onion and garlic salt do.
4. Vinegars: Apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, fig vinegar, orange vinegar are often low calorie and bring a zing and zest to your meals.
5. Fresh (or frozen) garlic, ginger and onions add flavor to meals with zero calories and no added sodium.
6. Nutritional yeast: has a cheesy (kind of) like flavor without the cheese and can be added to savory dishes for a dash of extra flavor.
Have a healthy day!