Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to “choose your own adventure” in the new and exciting field of condiment awareness. Last week in the mental mission, I encouraged you to begin reading condiment labels and being conscious of how many condiments you use and what quantity.
At our house, we have some very condiment-heavy meals. When we have homemade chicken nuggets and baked French fries, we can easily have a dozen condiment bottles on the table. Don’t believe me? Ketchup, mustard, Dijon mustard, honey, 3 different salad dressings, buffalo wing sauce, regular BBQ, spicy BBQ, Georgia Mustard BBQ, Insanity Sauce. There. That’s 12. Do we use a lot of napkins at that meal? Oh, yeah. Am I aware that that’s excessive condiments? Why do you think I’m trying to teach condiment awareness? The first step toward recovery is acceptance of a problem…
On to the mission! Below I list TEN different ways that you can reduce, upgrade, or increase consciousness of your condiments.
- Your Baby Steps mission is to choose ONE and implement it this week.
- If you’re ready to accept Making Strides, choose three.
- If you’ve really got a lot of mental energy this week, take a Leap of Faith and go for eight, or even ten. (What do Baby Steps, Making Strides, and Leap of Faith mean?)
Ten Steps to Increase Your Condiment Awareness
- Simply use less. Put a smaller dollop of ketchup on your plate for French fries. Drizzle salad dressing instead of pouring. If you can practice the fine art of putting the condiment onto your tongue first, you’ll quickly find that a little goes a long way in carrying the flavor across your tongue, and it’s usually the flavor (not the bulk) you want in a condiment anyway. If you’ve been condiment-aware this week, you may have noticed how much dressing ends up in the bottom of your salad bowl. Why waste? Just get it on your lettuce and let your tongue taste everything in the salad, PLUS the dressing.
- Start reading condiment labels and choosing the lesser-of-the-evils kind. Ketchup with less or no high fructose corn syrup or artificial colors. Salad dressing with plain sugar instead of HFCS.
- Use more mustard. Mustard is my all-time-favorite condiment. It always was because it’s just my thing, but now that I read labels, it’s gotten even better. Mustard has zero calories, zero fats, zero sugar. If you like it on a sandwich, go mustard-heavy and skip the ketchup, or skimp the ketchup. Dip your chicken in mustard instead of BBQ sauce.
- My fav fat free salad dressing? Mustard. I never liked dressings at all until college, and I thought one day, being the conscious kitchen steward that I am, “Hey…I like mustard on chicken sandwiches with cheese and lettuce. Here is a salad with cheese and chicken. Maybe mustard would be good on a salad!” And it is! Fat free, calorie free. Good deal. Also consider salsa on your salad, especially with some taco-seasoned chicken….Mmmm, Mmmm!
- Switch to something real. Use honey (raw, local is best – see here for more!) instead of HFCS-laden jam on your toast or with natural peanut butter. Use real maple syrup instead of the fake stuff, which is all corn syrup, sugar and water. (See tomorrow’s Kitchen Tip Tuesday for some tricks to stretch the maple syrup, since it’s quite costly.)
- Try cinnamon. Besides the exciting health benefits of cinnamon, it can fake you out and make your tongue think things taste sweeter. Try adding it to your oatmeal, use it with butter on biscuits or toast instead of something sweet (jam, honey), and even add it to cookie recipes while trying to cut out some sugar. What else does cinnamon go great in?
- Switch to butter instead of margarine. Even if the label says “zero trans fats” you may be deceived. Read the full details here. Also see Butter vs. Margarine vs. Spreads.
- If you’re still afraid of butter (I’m not), use olive oil instead. Nobody has anything bad to say about EVOO (read more here), at least when it’s not heated. Use it with garlic salt on toast with Italian dishes, drizzle it on steamed veggies instead of butter, even try it with herbs on your potatoes.
- Make your own condiments. The only way to make sure all the ingredients are healthy without spending an arm and a leg (remember that “money” is one of the topics Kitchen Stewardship is trying to balance!) is to make your own. You can use Extra Virgin Olive Oil, real garlic for its health benefits, and leave out the HFCS and white sugar. Find four great dressing recipes here and my new favorites, Asian Toasted Sesame and Creamy Garlic. I have tried making my own ketchup once, but it didn’t go over well with the husband, so I’ll be Googling for a new recipe once my stores run lower (why waste what I’ve already purchased?). We now use homemade mayo for sandwiches and my ranch dressing recipe. There are many good BBQ sauce recipes out there too.
- Do NOT switch to the “low-fat” or “low-cal” version of dressings. Why not? When the fat comes out, what do you think goes in to replace it? If you’ve been label-reading, you may have noticed the answer: salt, high-fructose corn syrup and sugar. You’re choosing one evil over another, and perhaps the greater of the two evils. The “low-cal” or “light” versions too often use artificial sweeteners, chemicals with too many “what-ifs” for me to feed them to my family. (More on sweeteners this winter!) Just stick with the regular stuff and use less (see no. 1).
Bonus option: Try dark chocolate in place of milk chocolate, if it’s *real* dark chocolate. For more on the reasons why, click here.
You may be interested in:
- Soul First, Body Second
- 10 Tips for Avoiding the Microwave
- Honey, We’re Having a Crudite Platter Tonight!
Need More Baby Steps?
Here at Kitchen Stewardship, we’ve always been all about the baby steps. But if you’re just starting your real food and natural living journey, sifting through all that we’ve shared here over the years can be totally overwhelming.
That’s why we took the best 10 rookie “Monday Missions” that used to post once a week and made a printable checklist so you can track your progress.
Sign up to get the checklist and weekly challenges and teaching on key topics like meal planning, homemade foods that save the budget (and don’t take too much time), what to cut out of your pantry, and more.
Sarah says
We made up a batch of homemade mayo for the first time last week using EVOO! It is great, but strongly olive oil tasting. However, I think mixed up with what we normally use mayo in, the flavor will be perfect! I’m thinking about picking up some regular olive oil (not extra virgin) for making it next time, but I hate that all regular olive oils are refined and processed with heat. We’ll see!
Recently I picked up some Organic Heinz Tomato ketchup and it is working great for our family! Being organic, there is no HFCS so I feel a bit better about it. The only problem is I can only find it in pretty small quantities so if you use a lot of ketchup, it won’t be much of a great savings! I am saving up recipes, though, to try for homemade! We’ll see!
Best,
Sarah
Katie says
Sarah,
I’m working on some research on olive oil for an update to my earlier “how to choose and use” post. I thought it might be for this week, but look for it next week! I like the HM mayo with sesame oil – I happened to have unrefined, which had a lot of flavor but was ok, and Kelly the Kitchen Kop uses refined sesame with little to no flavor. Basically you may want virgin olive oil for cooking, but try to use extra virgin for the cold stuff like this. I’m going to try refined coconut oil for half of my next mayo, I think.
Anna says
I’ve found the best ketchup at one of our local ethnic markets. And it’s not as expensive as the Heinz organic, about 3 dollars a bottle… a glass bottle, so I don’t have to look for the little triangle and decipher if I can recycle the container!!
DH was born in Thailand and I frequent Asian and Indian markets often. I’ve found that HFCS is generally not an ingredient in Asian processed foods. If you have an Asian or Indian market nearby, check it out…
Jenny @ Nourished Kitchen says
My favorite tip is #9 – make your own. This weekend I whipped up a killer BBQ sauce loaded with good stuff. No HFCS, MSG or Corn Starch to be found. Plus the flavor is great. This weekend we’re experimenting with our own mustard. Wish me luck.
Katie says
I have never seen a recipe for HM mustard! Will you blog about it? Would love to see the results of that one, and the BBQ in fact! Good luck… 😉
Michelle @ Find Your Balance says
Ahh, yes. Switch to something REAL! In my house we use a lot of toasted sesame oil, umeboshi plum vinegar, tamari and yes…mustard! Raw honey is great as are nut butters.
troy says
gotta plug http://www.doctorgrandmas.com with their fab sweetener. The best whole wheat pancakes and muffins too!
angie says
think I will try to make homemade mayo i will let you know how it turns out
Martha says
Great information on increasing your condiment awareness! As a fellow mustard fan, I can totally relate to your list.
Chris at Lost Arts Kitchen says
I was one of those people with dozens of store-bought condiments in my fridge…including a door-shelf full of salad dressings. I started making my own dressings several years ago and have been making more and more of my own condiments since. I make mayo similar to yours, with about 3 parts organic sunflower or safflower oil and 1 part olive oil. I leave out the sweetner–I like my mayo tangy! I do mine in my Cuisinart food processor, which has a tiny hole in the lid for dripping oil drop-by-drops–whips up perfect mayo everytime. No one was more surprised than me to find that tartar sauce made with homemade mayo (and lactofermented pickles) was nothing like the insipid stuff that comes from the store. The kids literally lick the bowl when we have that with dinner.
I also make a lactofermented ketchup that’s amazing…and I’m not a ketchup lover. It use tomato paste, maple syrup (or Rapadura), apple cider vinegar, and cloves! The ketchup serves as a base for BBQ sauce and sweet-and-sour sauce–both are so much better than any made with store bought ketchup.
I keep homemade teriyaki sauce in the fridge for quick marinades. That’s mostly tamari, honey, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and garlic.
What I find is that none of these homemade condiments takes very long at all and they have such great flavor that used consciously, as you suggest, they last a long time. I made a pint of ketchup every few months…it keeps well and even improves with age.
Condiments I still buy include fish sauce, tamari, miso, Dijon mustard (that’s my next scratch condiment goal), and some curry sauces.
Katie says
Oh, my goodness! I never thought I’d be salivating after reading a list of condiments! I hope you have recipes for some of these on your blog…I’m headed over to check that out…or maybe after I’m free from my parents’ dial-up Internet (aka slow Chinese water torture!). Thanks for the awesome comment!
Laryssa @ Heaven In The Home says
I add whey to my organic store bought condiments. I’d like to make my own, but that will at least make them healthier right now.
Katie says
Laryssa – Do you then leave them on the counter for a certain amt of time to lacto-ferment, or just stir it in and leave them in the fridge? Thanks! Katie
Ann Kroeker says
Thanks for reminding me to think before I pour (or squeeze, or sprinkle). The Belgian Wonder’s sisters have taught me how to make a very simple vinaigrette that I should share sometime on Food on Fridays. It’s simple and healthy (heavy on the garlic). Oh, and it has MUSTARD! 🙂
Sharinskishe says
I like to dip my fork into my salad dressing of choice and then into the salad. This way I get the right amount of dressing taste with my veggies- I am in control!
I am not afraid of butter! I love to use butter. We seldom use margarine, like only when it is on a very special special, like the 2 pounds I got for 61 cents each.
Shari
Amy Green - Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free says
I have been making my own condiments for so long because I can’t eat sugar. I make my own salad dressing, ketchup, mayo. Not mustard, though. I love dijon and put it in so many things. 🙂 Great post!!
Nicole Feliciano says
Great post. I love mustard too. I hope you have time this weekend to post over at Momtrends. Here is the link for Friday Feasts:
http://momtrends.blogspot.com/2009/08/friday-feasts-poached-salmon.html
oh amanda says
Wow! So much good information! Thanks for linking up w/Top Ten!
Sue @ Cuisinart Food Processors says
Great info! I love using mustard on sandwiches and salads. I use alive oil all the time. I like to spread some over chicken breast, add some seasonings, and then BBQ it.
.-= Sue @ Cuisinart Food Processors´s last blog ..KitchenAid 12 Cup Food Processor | White =-.
Tiffany says
Instead of butter of my grilled cheese sandwiches, I use mustard. It grills the bread fine and it so tasty!