The secret recipe: Herbs and spices can transform unhealthy foods into nutritious meals, experts highlight

05 Sep 2023 --- Researchers from Penn State have created a format for effectively replacing high-in fats, sugars and salt foods (HFSS) using herbs and spices. The team used the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey national database of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to identify about ten of the most popular HFSS foods. 

Of these, the main culprits found to be HFSS in the US included meatloaf, chicken pot pie, macaroni and cheese and brownies. Their nutritional findings have been published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

“Unfortunately, the majority of our salt intake is out of our control. Most of the salt we eat is in the foods we buy, and once it has been added, we cannot take it out. The food industry has been adding salt to our food for many years – it’s a cheap ingredient that is used for a number of reasons, not just taste,” Sonia Pombo, campaign lead at Action on Salt tells Nutrition Insight. 

“Using herbs and spices will help to add flavor, but it does not replace the other qualities that salt has – namely preservation. But it isn’t impossible, and in many categories of food it is a feasible option. We recommend companies gradually reduce the salt content of the food they produce, so that consumers do not notice the difference in taste - adding herbs and spices can certainly help with that.”

Constructing the model
The researchers worked with culinary experts to create three recipes featuring this composition of ingredients and the research is supported by the McCormick Science Institute.

“Our goal was to see how much we could lower these over-consumed ingredients without affecting the overall properties of the food in terms of mouthfeel and structure, and then add in herbs and spices to improve the flavor,” explains Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State. 

What sparked the need for the study came from improving food products that claim to be healthier than their 1990s counterparts, borne from the “low-fat craze” but are no better.Mac and cheese and apple pie were a few of the usual suspects that needed reductions in salt and saturated fat.

Back then, many food companies removed saturated fats from their products but merely replaced them with sugars to give them the desired taste. The resulting products were not healthier and consumers were still overeating saturated fat.

Pombo adds that to many consumers, it seems as though the only way to add flavor to dishes is with a big pinch of salt, but there are many other ways to ensure food is flavorsome. “The use of herbs and spices, as well as garlic and citrus, are a great way of adding flavor to foods without the need of using salt,” she says.

“This is particularly helpful if cooking at home from scratch, where you have more control of what you add to food, and can be a great way of getting creative in the kitchen and exploring new flavors,” explains Pombo.

Rustling-up the ingredients
The current study’s recipes included a primary version mimicking a standard formula that contains typical amounts of saturated fat, sugar and salt. The second was a nutritionally improved version in which the excess saturated fat, sugar and salt were removed and the third had the same nutrient profile as the second but contained herbs and spices such as garlic powder, ground mustard seed, cayenne, cumin, rosemary, thyme, cinnamon and vanilla extract.

“We know that one of the key barriers to reducing intake of these ingredients is the flavor of the food. If you want people to eat healthy food, it has to taste good. That’s why our finding that participants actually preferred some of the recipes in which much of the saturated fat and salt was replaced with herbs and spices is so important,” Petersen continues.

Meanwhile, the latest global report on sodium intake reduction by the WHO stated that the world is off-track in reaching its global target of a 30% reduction by 2025, which may jeopardize millions of lives. 

The researchers conducted blind taste tests featuring the recipes they had created, which the study participants (107 in total) evaluated. They analyzed the food’s appearance, flavor and texture and ranked it according to their order of preference.

“We found that adding herbs and spices restored the overall liking to the level of the original food in seven of the ten recipes. Participants liked some of the recipes better than the originals,” says Petersen.

According to the researchers, participants specifically liked the healthier, flavor-enhanced versions of the brownies and chicken in cream sauce significantly more than the original recipes. The dishes included meatloaf, chili, apple pie, pasta with meat sauce and taco meat, flavor-enhanced cheese pizza, mac and cheese and chicken pot pie recipes.

To make healthier versions, the researchers swapped salted butter for unsalted butter in the macaroni and cheese, for example. They swapped the 2% milk for skim milk, replaced some US cheese with reduced-fat cheese and eliminated the extra salt.The study participants preferred the healthier recipes formulated with herb and spice flavorings.  

They added onion powder, garlic powder, ground mustard seed, paprika and cayenne for the nutritionally improved version.

“Best tips when buying manufactured foods is to shop around, looking at the nutrition tables and, where possible, opt for lower salt alternatives. Try and select more minimally processed foods, such as raw chicken instead of marinated versions and experiment with flavors and spice rubs at home,” Pombo explains.

Creating a viable nutrient model
A model of the potential impact of 25-100% of adult US consumers eating these meals was constructed. The researchers calculated that the estimated daily reduction of saturated fat and salt would be between 3 and 25% if the healthier recipes were adopted.

There could be up to an 11.5% reduction if all consumers adopted healthier recipes. The overall reductions in added sugars were far less.

“We demonstrated a meaningful reduction in over-consumed nutrients is possible with modification of these recipes and these changes are acceptable to consumers,” says Petersen. 

“This suggests that more research should be done to look at how to implement this more broadly.” 

In addition, researchers have proposed sodium reduction targets of 20% for pre-packaged foods in China in light of their latest findings published in the WHO Bulletin, demonstrating that these products contribute about a third of salt intake in the population.

The American Heart Association stated that changing the recipes of Australian packaged foods to reduce sodium could save 1,770 lives annually and prevent nearly 7,000 yearly diagnoses of heart disease, kidney disease and stomach cancer.

By Inga de Jong