Secret Sauces for Healthy Metabolism: Condiment Recipes
“Lettuce, greens and celery, though much eaten, are worse than cabbage, being equally indigestible without the addition of condiments.” - ‘The Young House-keeper’, W. A. Alcott (1846)
Why spend time making your own sauces, spreads, dressings, and dips? Because the ones you buy in your store include many ingredients that are not actually food. The quality of fats is often questionable. And many ingredients in store-bought condiments serve to enhance flavor, improve consistency, add color, and extend shelf life. I encourage you to avoid vegetable oils like soy, sunflower, safflower, corn, and canola. These oils are heat-sensitive and prone to oxidation during processing. Once oxidized, oil becomes pro-inflammatory and contributes to many chronic diseases. I recommend using extra virgin olive oil in most of my recipes.
However, it’s just as essential to avoid all the chemicals that the food industry adds to our food. Consider this list of ingredients:
SKIM MILK, WHEY (MILK), PALM OIL, WATER, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF ONION*, PARSLEY*, SALT, SUGAR, HYDROLYZED SOY AND CORN PROTEIN, HYDROLYZED TORULA AND BREWER’S YEAST PROTEIN, CITRIC ACID, LACTIC ACID, ACETIC ACID, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, FOOD STARCH-MODIFIED, GELATIN, SODIUM HEXAMETAPHOSPHATE, LOCUST BEAN GUM, SOY LECITHIN, POTASSIUM SORBATE (TO PRESERVE FRESHNESS), GUAR GUM, CARRAGEENAN, YELLOW 5 & 6. *DEHYDRATED.
Maybe the first seven ingredients are food. And the rest is just something we have no reason to eat! We don’t need them! They are a burden on our liver and kidneys, as they process, detoxify, and filter them out of the body.
