To improve the taste of our food, we increasingly add salt and sugar. Despite the array of other readily available ingredients, we opt for the quick and easy option. Yes, we know that it is also the cheap option – salt is widely available and cheap, sugar on the other hand needs scarce resources (fertile land, water) to be produced and it has become so cheap because of the sheer scale of production. Cheap and easy has fuelled two very serious health problems: Obesity and related health concerns like diabetes as well hypertension and associated cardiovascular illnesses. It is time we shifted some of those valuable land and water resources to other healthier products.

How can we add flavour to our food without salt or sugar?

Let’s look at some of these other options to give food more taste. Most people believe that to give food a savoury taste, they need to add salt. They are either just lazy or ignorant of the fifth basic taste – umami. Many of you would have seen paste or sauce in the supermarket with the label “Umami” and thought that it was just a type of sauce, like mayonnaise. Umami is the fifth taste joining sweet, sour, salty and bitter. It is a Japanese word that was coined over 100 years ago and is a taste that cannot be created by mixing the other tastes. Umami is known scientifically as monosodium glutamate. It contains the word sodium in its scientific description but is not salt/sodium. Umami is the deep, rich and savoury flavour that we find in many foods. Umami is often confused with saltiness because some foods that are high in umami are also high in salt like soy sauce and broths. These are manufactured products and salt is added in the manufacturing process. Foods that are naturally high in umami are tomatoes, onions, dried mushrooms, asparagus, balsamic vinegar and red wine. Adding these high umami foods will certainly give your meals greater taste. Herbs and spices are also a great way to add more flavour to food. Aside from having many health benefits, garlic and ginger increase the aroma and flavour of food. Adding fruit and citrus will certainly give food a bit more zest. Chili will not only improve digestive health and fight inflammation, but it will also wake up your taste buds.

In the past sugar was mostly used for desserts and in the preparation of other sweet foods. We now find that sugar is increasingly used in foods that have a savoury taste. Combining sugar with salt disguises the saltiness of food. It is also now believed that food that is high in salt and sugar tends to be more addictive. Even a staple like bread contains a lot of sugar and salt – this was not the case 30 years ago!

So, what can we do about it?

We need to start making changes at home and incorporate other ingredients to give our food more flavour. We also need to choose manufactured products that care about our health and incorporate other ingredients aside from just sugar and salt – these choices will force the industry to change!

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