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Using Herbs and Spices to Create a Healthy Eating Routine

Enhancing recipes with herbs and spices can add lots of flavor to your favorite foods and reduce added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium in your diet.

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Updated:

January 15, 2022

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Using herbs and spices in cooking and baking will allow you to enjoy your favorite foods while following the MyPlate recommendations, which include limiting added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium. An eating plan based on a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, and dairy or fortified soy alternatives, seasoned with herbs and spices, will help support a healthy lifestyle.

A great tip from MyPlate is to focus on consuming nutrient-dense foods and beverages, which provide plenty of vitamins, minerals, and other health-promoting nutrients. Generally speaking, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, seafood, eggs, beans, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, lean meats, and poultry prepared with little to no added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium are examples of nutrient-dense foods (U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2020). Using herbs and spices can add flavor and variety to any of these foods and can accommodate you and your family's personal preferences, cultural traditions, and food budget.

To incorporate the MyPlate plan into your daily cooking and baking, MyPlate.gov, an interactive and easy-to-navigate website, provides you with an opportunity to develop a healthy eating plan for you and your family. You can take a quiz to receive personalized resources to "Start Simple with MyPlate."

MyPlate.gov offers a variety of resources to support and guide you as you navigate toward a healthy eating routine (USDA n.d.[b]). These resources include:

quick and easy recipes with videos
tools to help you save money at the grocery store
recommended daily amounts for each food group based on age, sex, height, weight, and physical activity level
information, videos, and apps to support your journey to a healthier life

Modifying Recipes with Herbs and Spices to Improve Healthful Eating

A few simple changes and additions to a recipe will help you limit added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium and still allow you to create a great-tasting meal. The comparisons here may surprise you.

Brown Rice with Herbs and Spices

Comparing the typical brown rice recipe with the nutrient-dense version, you can see a significant difference in sodium content. MyPlate recommends less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day, which is almost the amount of sodium in 1 teaspoon of salt (USDA n.d.[a]). The typical recipe has close to 600 milligrams of sodium, more than 25 percent of the daily limit. Using a variety of herbs and spices, the nutrient-dense recipe has less than 5 percent of the daily limit of sodium and lots of flavor.

Sodium	590 mg	120 mg
	Typical Recipe	Nutrient-Dense Recipe
Calories	190	150
Total Fat	2 g	1.5 g
Saturated Fat	0	0
Cholesterol	0	0
Total CHO	39 g	32 g
- Dietary Fiber	2 g	2 g
- Total Sugars	1 g	0
- Added Sugars	1 g	0
Protein	5 g	3 g

Herb Sauced Chicken

An herb sauced chicken recipe is a great dish to make for dinner, and even the leftovers are delicious. The typical recipe has 19 grams of saturated fat, while the nutrient-dense recipe has only 3 grams. MyPlate recommends no more than 22 grams of saturated fat per day based on a 2,000-calorie diet (USDA n.d.[a]). While reducing total fat helps to significantly reduce the calories, decreasing the amount of saturated fat may reduce your risk of heart disease. Even the sodium content has been reduced by almost a third (140 milligrams) in the nutrient-dense recipe.

Calories	450	260
	Typical Recipe	Nutrient-Dense Recipe
Total Fat	34 g	12 g
Saturated Fat	19 g	3 g
Cholesterol	165 mg	75 mg
Sodium	410 mg	270 mg
Total CHO	7 g	9 g
- Dietary Fiber	1 g	1 g
- Total Sugars	3 g	5 g
- Added Sugars	0	0
Protein	29 g	28 g

Seasoned Roasted Vegetables

When seasoning vegetables, it is easy to overseason with salt. Make your own salt-free seasoning blends to add flavor to your favorite foods. Since sodium is not to exceed 2,300 milligrams per day, the 20 milligrams of sodium in the nutrient-dense recipe is significantly less than the 320 milligrams in the typical recipe.

Sodium	320 mg	20 mg
	Typical Recipe	Nutrient-Dense Recipe
Calories	50	45
Total Fat	3.5 g	2 g
Saturated Fat	0.5 g	0
Cholesterol	0	0
Total CHO	4 g	5 g
- Dietary Fiber	2 g	2 g
- Total Sugars	1 g	2 g
- Added Sugars	0	0
Protein	2 g	2g

Apple and Blueberry Crisp

Spices and extracts are an easy and convenient way to add flavor to many desserts. This easy-to-prepare, delicious dessert has fewer added sugars and only 1 gram of saturated fat. Reducing both total fat and total carbohydrates helps reduce the calories in the nutrient-dense recipe. Frozen blueberries can be used anytime during the year, but you may want to consider fresh berries during the warmer months when they are less expensive. Added sugars can be hidden, which makes reading ingredient lists important. MyPlate.gov provides a list of these hidden sugars.

Calories	370	260
	Typical Recipe	Nutrient-Dense Recipe
Total Fat	15 g	11 g
Saturated Fat	8 g	1 g
Cholesterol	10 mg	0
Sodium	120 mg	0
Total CHO	56 g	39 g
- Dietary Fiber	5 g	6 g
- Total Sugars	22 g	24 g
- Added Sugars	19 g	8 g
Protein	3 g	4 g