In response to the 1990s obsession with low-fat diets, many food manufacturers eliminated saturated fat from their products and replaced it with sugar without sacrificing flavor. Unfortunately, improved products are less healthy than the original versions, and today the average person consumes excessive amounts of saturated fat.
Now, a team of Penn State researchers has discovered a way to reduce the amount of saturated fat, sugar, and salt in a popular American dish without sacrificing flavor. trick? Replace over-consumed ingredients with healthy herbs and spices.
“Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, and limiting saturated fat and sodium intake are key recommendations to reduce the risk of developing this disease,” Penn State University Nutrition Sciences Associate Professor Christina Petersen said. “But we know that one of the major barriers to reducing intake of these ingredients is the flavor of the food. It has to taste good, which is why our finding that participants actually liked some of the recipes that replaced most of the saturated fat and salt with herbs and spices was so important.”
The researchers used a nationally representative database called the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to identify the 10 most popular foods high in sodium, added sugars, and saturated fat. did. These include meatloaf, chicken pot pie, macaroni and cheese, and brownies.
We then worked with culinary experts to develop three versions of these recipes. First, it contained the typical amounts of saturated fat, sugar, and salt used in these recipes. The second version was nutritionally improved by removing excess saturated fat, sugar, and salt. The nutritional content of the third version was the same as his second version, but added herbs and spices such as garlic powder, mustard seeds, cayenne, cumin, rosemary, thyme, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. .
For example, a typical macaroni and cheese recipe included salted butter, 2% milk, American cheese, and salt. For the nutritionally improved version, the researchers replaced the salted butter with unsalted butter, reducing the amount in the recipe by 75%. They replaced 2% of the milk with skim milk, replaced some of the American cheese with reduced-fat cheese, and eliminated extra salt. For a nutritionally improved version with herbs and spices, the researchers added onion powder, garlic powder, mustard seeds, paprika, and cayenne pepper.
“Our goal was to see how much we could reduce these excess ingredients without affecting the overall properties of the food in terms of mouthfeel or structure, and to use herbs to improve flavor.” and spices,” says Petersen.
The researchers then conducted a blind taste test of each of the 10 recipes. Participants rated all three versions of the dish, one at a time, in one session. Between 85 and 107 consumers completed each test. Participants rated several aspects of each recipe’s acceptability, including overall liking and preference for attributes such as food appearance, flavor, and texture. Participants then ranked the dishes in order of preference.
“We found that adding herbs and spices returned the overall liking to the original food level in seven out of 10 recipes,” Petersen says. “In fact, participants liked some of the recipes better than the original.”
Specifically, participants significantly preferred the healthier, flavor-enhanced versions of brownies and chicken in cream sauce over the original recipe. For his five dishes: meatloaf, chili, apple pie, pasta with meat sauce, and taco meat, participants preferred healthier, flavor-enhanced versions that were nearly identical to the original versions. They preferred the healthier, more flavorful cheese pizza, mac and cheese, and chicken pot pie recipes over the original versions.
Finally, the team modeled the potential impact if 25 to 100 percent of adult U.S. consumers ate these recipes instead of the original recipe. For saturated fat and salt, if 25% of consumers adopted healthier recipes, the estimated daily reduction would be about 3%, compared to 100% of consumers who adopted healthier recipes. It was found that when the recipe was adopted, the rate was approximately 11.5%. We observed smaller estimated reductions for added sugars across the modeled consumer adoption range.
The results were recently Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
“These 10 recipe changes have been demonstrated to significantly reduce nutrient overload, and these changes are acceptable to consumers,” Petersen said. “This suggests that more research needs to be done to look at how to implement this more broadly and how to educate people to make these kinds of changes. Important The thing is, most of the food that people consume is purchased in prepared form, so these findings could be applied to the food supply. I think that would have a big impact on people’s health. ”
References: “Using herbs/spices to enhance the flavor of commonly consumed foods that have been reformulated so that fewer dietary components are consumed in excess is an acceptable strategy, reducing saturated fat and “May Reduce Sodium Intake: Analysis and Blinding of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey” by Christina S. Petersen, Victor L. Fulgoni, Helen Hopfer, John E. Hayes, Rachel Good Ding, Penny Chris Etherton, July 31, 2023, Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jand.2023.07.025
Other authors of the paper include Victor Fulgoni, senior vice president of Nutrition Impact LLC; Helen Hopfer, associate professor of food science at Penn State; John Hayes, Penn State Professor of Food Science; Rachel Gooding, Senior Research Chef, McCormick & Company; Penny Chris Etherton, professor emeritus of nutritional sciences at Penn State Evan Pugh University;
The McCormick Institute for Science supported this research.