Spices

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forcheese
forcheese Posts: 24
edited December 2014 in Food and Nutrition
Hey,

I tried a quick search, but didn't find the answer to my question.

I love spices and I always add a lot in my cooking, but funnily enough I add very little to no salt and pepper to my food.


The question I have is it best to limit your seasoning? The spices I most often use are a variety of masalas, curry and yummy chicken spices. The spices I buy don't show you any nutritional information so not sure if it's a good idea to just freely add spices to my food.


I know the cooking method makes a difference and obviously you can make anything unhealthy or bad for your diet, but in general are spices a safer flavourant?


It sounds silly I know, but I know there are so many things that influence "weightloss" without you even knowing it and most diet plans give you a very bland diet to follow so I'm guessing there must be a reason for it.

Thanks

Replies

  • habeeba300
    habeeba300 Posts: 33 Member
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    I wouldnt worry about it ,spices are great.I have lost 84 pounds and there is spices in all my home cooking.A lot of ready packaged foods and tins contain loads of sugar and salt which is bad but spices help with digestion , if you are used to it.
  • Stdavis53
    Stdavis53 Posts: 233 Member
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    The only think I would recommend staying away from is some of the *Pre-blended* Seasoning jars/packets. They tend to have sugars/higher amounts of salts than if you were to just recreate the seasoning yourself. Cayenne, Cumin and Cinnamon have made quite a few appearances in random foods that I have made just to mix things up and they are all great for you!
  • forcheese
    forcheese Posts: 24
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    Thanks I felt so silly after asking this question, but there wasn't an option to delete the thread.

    I was just making food the other day and thought wait this is a lot of spices (a TBSP per spice), I wonder if this is somehow secretly sabotaging my attempts at healthy cooking.

    I try to follow the "healthy clean meal" recipes, but they just soooo bland to my taste buds I like my food spicy.

    Thanks guys
  • BWBTrish
    BWBTrish Posts: 2,817 Member
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    I do log my spices& herbs. Specially because i use them a lot. Some recipes can have a 50 calories of fresh parsley/basil/garlic/chives/curry powder etc. I choice to log them because i want to know if i get enough nutrition

    Some of my recipes have 25 to 30 calories of spices&herbs Eat this twice a meal twice a day an you got a 50 calories right there.

    The benefit of herbs & spices are great. Specially fresh herbs. So dont want to miss out on any of them. But i also decided to log really everything i eat.
  • rivka_m
    rivka_m Posts: 1,007 Member
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    I think it's just that a lot of meal plans don't take into account how people might actually cook (don't get me started on how they never use leftovers) and/or don't want to frighten away those that like bland food.

    Spice away, although as others state, logging them is not a bad idea.
  • BWBTrish
    BWBTrish Posts: 2,817 Member
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    i think a lot of it is that they use the rule when it is under 5 calories they dont mention the amount of calories. You see it in " i cant believe its butter" spray and lemon juice etc
    it says 0 calories but that isnt true.

    lemon juice has some calories per tsp. And when you make lemon cod like me yesterday than there are 10 calories of lemon juice in it. Take in account the other spices i used ( garlic, parsley, pepper, thyme, cilantro, paprika powder and chili powder) i had a whopping amount of 46 calories.

    I know it isnt much for some. But i am just the kind of person that want to know how much nutrition i get and how much calories. It helps me to get fit, and stay on top of it and lose weight :)

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