Use This, Not That!

The title of this entry comes from the book Eat This, Not That, a healthy eating book that offers suggestions for menu items at restaurants (for example, it might say that you should eat a McChicken sandwich instead of a Big Mac). I'm spreading this doctrine to ingredients in your kitchen and convince you that using one ingredient instead of a similar one can make a big difference in your cooking.

1. When making pasta sauce, use red wine, not white wine. Obviously, this depends on what type of sauce you are making, but for tomato-based sauces, red wine adds a deeper flavor and richness than white wine. Making a simple adjustment here will turn your pasta sauce into a flavorful, bold sauce that tastes like it's been on the stove all day. My hypothesis is that red wine contains more glutamate, a chemical which acts on the umami (or savory) taste receptors in your mouth. Tomatoes also contain a lot of umami, so pairing the two should boost the flavor.

(Side note: When I say glutamate, I am referring to the naturally occurring chemical found in many foods, from red meats to tomatoes to soy sauce. Monosodium glutamate, or MSG, is an artificial form of glutamate added to foods like crackers, chips, and french fries to make them taste more savory. MSG is the stuff that researchers think causes people to eat more and gain more weight; foods with glutamate, however, are fine when eaten in reasonable quantities.)

2. When using salt in cooking, use sea salt, not table salt. I have to admit, this is a rule I have only recently begun following. Sea salt is coarser than table salt; thus, it takes less salt to season foods- and don't worry about the food lacking in salty flavor- sea salt definitely packs a punch in that regard, to the point where I end up using less sea salt than I would have used table salt. There are health benefits as well: because it is coarser, one teaspoon of sea salt contains less sodium than one teaspoon of table salt. Replacing table salt with sea salt is a simple way to cut back on sodium. There are many types of sea salt out there- right now, I am using a French sea salt called Fleur de Sel that I brought back from my trip to Europe over the summer. Fleur de Sel is expensive in the US, but you can try any kind of the coarse sea salts offered in your grocery store or at import stores like World Market.

3. Try making large batches of homemade foods and freezing them, rather than using frozen meals from the store. This seems like a difficult thing to do- after all, how many people have time to make lasagna or pot roast anymore? But, if you find the time to follow this rule, you will notice huge health benefits. The key rule to prepared meals is the following: the closer it is to being ready to eat when you buy it, the more sodium it has. Refridgerated foods like pot roasts and stews seem like an easy way to put dinner on the table, but they are often loaded with more sodium than a small ocean. Frozen dinners generally have less sodium, but they still have significantly more than a homemade meal. These meals aren't very flavorful either- to me, they kinda taste something like...salty packing peanuts with sauce. The best solution is to spend a day off or a weekend day making some good food that can be frozen. You don't need to go all out- all it takes to make good, homemade lasagna is ground beef, noodles, a jar of tomato sauce, and some cheese. But even a spending 20 or 30 minutes making your own food will pay huge dividends- you can cut out a lot of sodium, add in extra vegetables, and add extra spices or herbs you like. My version of pot roast is definitely something to cook on a day off, but I would much rather eat that than the tasteless prepared pot roast.

Try these tips, and hopefully your cooking will turn out even better!