Ever realize you’ve just totally been missing the boat on something? Happens to me all the time.
Until recently, I’d never eaten hummus. Like , practically, never had a bite of it.
Why? I have it in my head that I don’t like Middle Eastern Food. And it’s true that I don’t like olives, or grape leaves, or sheep, or big scary rotating disks of mystery meat or baklava or feta or couscous.
But what the hell was my problem with hummus? It’s beans, garlic and some sesame. What’s not to like? Also, it’s one of the healthiest things you can eat.
I’ve been working on my diet and I’m always looking for 1) healthy snacks, 2) ways to upgrade my fresh vegetable intake and 3) ways to incorporate more beans into my diet (beans are one of the easiest health foods to incorporate into your diet and most Americans don’t like them, it’s weird).
So I bought my first container of Tribe Brand Sweet Roasted Red Pepper hummus this week and I am loving it. Even better, despite the titular sweetness, there is no sugar in it.
Next step: making my own tahini and hummus. How hard could it be?
Oh, man, Ray, I LIVE on hummus! Making it is insanely easy – I make it for Selva because of his salt sensitivity – but our favorite brand is Sabra, especially the lemon hummus. A really nice thing you can do for yourself is to add flax seed oil to your hummus to get more omega 3’s. We also add nutirional yeast for the B12 as Selva can’t get enough in his vegetarian diet and I don’t eat much meat any more so I supplement with it. Nutritional yeast has a slightly cheesy taste to it and is great sprinkled on anything that you would put cheese on and is good on popcorn too.
Good on ya for trying hummus – it’ll really improve your health!
Hey Kate!
Oh I’m all about the flax seed. I don’t use much of the flaxseed oil, but I’m on a huge seed kick right now and I’m sprinkling flax seeds, sesame seeds and hemp seeds all over anything I can think of.
I know that you get more of the value from flax seed in oil (or crushed seed) form, but I’m too lazy. Plus ground flax seed is just kind of creepy. Whole the seeds add a little crunch, and my attitude is, I’m getting more flax goodness than BEFORE I started adding it to stuff.
I just made a Super Seed granola that’s ridiculously healthy and ridiculously delish.
One thing that’s amazing me about the Sweet Red Pepper hummus that I’m currently enjoying is that it indeed sweet — but the label lists no sweeteners at all. I keep reading it again, convinced I missed something.
I’m trying to be aware of sugars and as I’m sure you know, they hide EVERYWHERE.
If I’m going to splurge and have sugar, I want it to be conscious. A rare hot fudge sundae or a Twinkie . . . . I don’t want to come away from a teriyaki chicken bowl and then realize I’ve just had as much sugar as three cookies.
Hey Ray,
I’m going to have to try making some myself. I’ve been buying the plain hummus from Fresh ‘n Easy, its nice and tart and goes great with their garlic naan bread. I’ve also been using it as a dip for fresh veggies, as a salad dressing and even when I’m bad and make quesadilla snacks.