Uncommon Condiments
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
It has been an insanely busy week and I have tried my damndest to get in even 2 blogs. So at 10:30 on a Friday night I am cranking out blog #2 just for you guys, so I hope you enjoy it.
I often get questions on how to spice up food, add a little more pop, variety and spice to meals that can sometimes become monotonous. So today I wanted to discuss a few condiment options that can really diversify your meal planning. There are obviously many more, but these are a few of my favorites.
1. Extra Virgin Olive Oil Basil Pesto.
I LOVE pesto. It is calorie dense, so you do have to be mindful of portion size, but it is most certainly delicious! The fat comes from the incredibly heart healthy extra virgin olive oil, and the basil provides some pretty potent health benefits as well. Basil has been shown to protect cell structures as well as chromosomes from radiation and oxidation. It has also been shown to have some very powerful anti-bacterial components. It is also anti-inflammatory, and is a good source of vitamin K, and vitamin A.
2. Hummus.
Hummus. One of my absolute favorite snacks. I don’t think a day goes by where I don’t have hummus with some baby carrots. I absolutely love it. It is low in calories, only 50 in 2 tbsp. It is made from chickpeas so it has little to no impact on blood sugar. The chickpeas are a great source of molybdenum, manganese, folate, fiber, protein and more! Molybdenum is not exactly a famous nutrient, but it is quite interesting. It helps to detoxify sulfites, which some people have reactions to and can cause rapid heartbeat, headache or disorientation.
3. Guacamole.
Gauc. Awesome in combination with pesto, absolutely awesome. Being made mainly from avocados, it is incredibly healthy. It provides a nice serving of heart healthy monounsaturated fats (like pesto) and also helps fight cancer of the mouth, breast, and prostate, and improves skin tone. Avocados also contain lutein, a powerful antioxidant that is essential to eye health. They also contain more potassium than bananas for blood pressure, is the richest source of beta-sitosterol, may increase HDL and provides more than 25 essential nutrients.
There you have it, three condiments that not only add a whole bunch of kick ass flavor to your cooking repertoire, but also had some kick ass nutrients to your health. Enjoy!
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Posted on June 26th, 2009 by Brian St. Pierre
3 Comments
August 28th, 2009 at 7:58 am
[...] today’s blog, posting a delicious and healthy recipe. A while back I blogged about some of my favorite condiments, one of them being hummus. As most of you probably know, baby carrots and hummus is one of my [...]
November 16th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
when i cook at home, i always make sure that i only cook healthy recipes because i don’t want to get fat -.:
April 4th, 2012 at 11:40 am
[...] different capacities – guacamole! A while back (like 3 years ago) I wrote a piece about my favorite condiments, which of course guacamole was on the list and that certainly has not [...]