Calorie Free Ways To Season Your Food

Have you ever dreamed of ordinary food tasting extraordinary, but without unwanted fat, calories and salt? It sounds too good to be true, but the truth is, spices and herbs are capable of not only adding delicious calorie-free flavors to our food, but they offer health benefits too!

Surprisingly, they are packed with more antioxidants than many fruits and vegetables! Herbs and spices seem to be like fruits and vegetables in that their health benefits accumulate over time–so the more you eat them, the better. So be sure to sprinkle ‘em wherever you can.

Garlic

 It looks like this delicious nutritious, delicious lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, keeping your heart healthy. The key to reaping the benefits is to use garlic in the place of artery-clogging saturated fats as often as possible.
Instead of seasoning with “artery-cloggers” like butter, sour cream or margarine use garlic.

Examples:

• on baked potatoes
• in mashed potatoes
• on veggies
• as a garlic toast spread

Add garlic to flavor to any:

• salad dressing
• Italian food
• pizzas (instead of using fatty meats)
• meat, poultry or fish

( Bonus Tip from The Nutrition Twins® : Check out Gourmet Garden’s squeezable fresh garlic and use it to make garlic toast. Simply toast your bread and spread on the squeezable garlic.)

Cilantro

Cilantro seems to aid digestion by increasing the flow of digestive juices, speeding up time food spends in the digestive tract. This means carcinogens spend less time in the colon. To reap the benefits, include cilantro regularly.

Especially aim to include cilantro after eating unhealthy foods so that you may be able to get them out of your system a little faster. (Note: This does NOT mean that eating cilantro will make up for a bad diet–sorry to disappoint you!)

Examples:

• Sprinkle it on your favorite Mexican dish (i.e., fajitas, tacos, burritos, chili, etc.)
• Dip tortilla chips or veggies in cilantro-spiked salsa and bean dips
• Add cilantro to:
  • corn
  • chicken
  • chicken soup
  • salad

Basil (A personal favorite of the NT)

Inflammation is linked to chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and even aging and skin wrinkling. Guess what? Basil appears to decrease inflammation. The key is to include basil in your diet regularly. Think of basil the same way that you think of fruits and vegetables–get more to keep your body healthy and vibrant. Basil is so versatile--add it wherever you can.

Examples:

• Add it to anything with tomatoes, (i.e, pastas with marinara sauce, tomato soup, sandwiches with tomato)
• Sprinkle:
  • on eggs
  • poultry
  • fish

( NT Tip : You can get basil most places you go. When you go to restaurants ask that basil be added to eggs, pastas, and sandwiches. Keep Gourmet Garden’s squeezable fresh or dried basil in your office so you can use it for meals "on the go".) .

(NT TIP for lunch-on-the-run: Go to Subway –order one of their new FRESH FIT™ meals and spread basil on it. One of our favorites is the 4- inch turkey sandwich with tomato–we spread basil on it when we get to our office and it’s delicious! No need for any high-calorie or high-salt condiment!)

Source: Nutrition Twins