Many people choose to add condiments to their food to enhance the taste. The first thing to note about this is that if there is a requirement to add taste to food, it is likely that the food has not been prepared well and is perhaps of low quality. Most healthy foods, if approached from a perspective of a neutral taste that has not been blunted by the Western diet, are actually fairly tasty when some effort is made to prepare them. The second point to note about sauces, is that in many cases these contain some ingredients that may not be considered healthy. In particular, many sauces are high in added sugar, salt and preservatives. In itself this may not be an issue as the amount eaten may be small, but the problem with adding such sauces is that they can increase the addictiveness of the food and encourage overeating. That they often encourage overeating of junk foods makes matters worse. There are some exceptions to this, most notably apples sauce, which is often added to pork. Apple sauce is essentially mashed up apples, and it therefore retains many of the health properties of the original fruit (minus the peel). Mint sauce may also provide significant health benefits because of the mint it contains, the only other ingredient being vinegar, which is also a health food. Following on from this, vinegar added to food may also have beneficial glycaemic effects.
Eat Well, Stay Healthy, Protect Yourself
RdB
