Partner content: Ingredient Minimalist
Lately there’s a lot of noise about buying products with fewer ingredients or ingredients you can pronounce. This isn’t the first time over my 30 years as a dietitian I’ve seen this sort of rhetoric.
Yesterday I made a quick chicken and vegetable soup with orzo pasta. All total it had at least 9 ingredients:
1. Chicken
2. Celery
3. Onions
4. Carrots
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5. Garlic
6. Chicken broth/stock
7. Orzo pasta
8. Salt
9. Pepper
The chicken I used was frozen, pre-cooked and shredded so I am sure there was some sodium and preservatives with it to make sure it was safe. I used some chicken stock I made from chicken bones and also some chicken broth from a container I bought at the store – I’m sure it also contained some preservatives to keep it fresh and safe.
My point is, let’s not get too hung up on an arbitrary number of ingredients or even ingredients that we can’t pronounce. Just because we can’t pronounce them doesn’t automatically make them bad!
Leah McGrath, RDN, LDN
Ingles Markets Corporate Dietitian
