Spice Up Your Diabetic Dinner

There is no need for your diabetic dinner to be bland just because it is low in fat, sugar and salt. Almost all herbs and spices are low in fat, sugar and salt. Herbs and spices are gift to the diabetic as they add tremendous flavour and depth to a meal with out increasing the fat, sugar or salt content.

These are all easily purchased at supermarkets and kept in your pantry for when required. However, care does need to be taken to check the sodium/salt content when using purchased prepared mixes of spices and herbs. While herbs grown fresh punch the most flavour, dried herbs are just as useful. Fresh herbs are added at the end of the meal just before serving while the dried herbs are added earlier in the cooking process.

Three further ingredients that are excellent to add to a diabetic meal that increase the flavour but do not impact the healthfulness of the meal are garlic, lemon and ginger. These are all packed with flavour without the added fat, salt or sugar. Add fresh garlic and ginger to your weekly shopping list. Garlic can be kept with your onions in the pantry and ginger either in your fruit bowl or in the freezer. Just grate what you require from the root. Lemon juice added to a meal adds freshness and some acid to balance out the other flavours.

If you keep a supply of herbs and spices in your pantry along with some garlic, lemon and ginger then these are all the added ingredients you need to make a diabetic meal full of flavour. Forget the salt and sugar!

If you like to experiment with your cooking then just go for it, adding herbs and spices to your meals until you find the combinations that make your taste buds sing.

If your following recipes then they always include herbs and spices. Hereis what I find works best:

To sweeten up a meal try: sweet basil, cinnamon, chives, coriander, and sweet paprika.

To spice up a meal try: cayenne pepper, black pepper, chilli powder, black mustard seeds.

For Chinese cooking try: five spice, star anise, fresh cilantro, ginger, garlic, lemon, Sichuan peppercorn.

For Mediterranean cooking try: bay leaves, lemon juice, rosemary, saffron, oregano, marjoram, basil, parsley, thyme and sage.

If you like Indian flavours without the heat try: cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, ginger, garlic, yellow mustard seeds, fenugreek, cardamom and mint.

For Mexican meals try: chilli powder, cumin, oregano and as much fresh chilli as you need to make it the heat you prefer.