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JULY 2025 TABLEHOPPING

CONDIMENTS REVISITED

Americans love their condiments. What does not go better with mayo, or ketchup? Who doesn’t like a good salad dressing ? Unfortunately , if you read the labels these condiments are full of terrible ingredients like vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup. Here you are trying to eat healthier and then you sabotage yourself with these processed , high calorie add ons. I have found some healthy alternatives for you to try and they come directly from one of Dr Steven Gundry’s recent podcasts. He interviewed award winning chef Jimmy Schmidt who whipped up some much healthier alternatives.

Beginning with Ketchup…the usual ketchup in the store has a teaspoon of sugar per tablespoon of ketchup. Worse, the sugar is in the form of high fructose corn syrup which is as inflammatory as you can get. Start with tomato paste, use some alulose which is a true sugar (initially found in figs) and a prebiotic, add garlic and onion and some vinegar. Add garlic and onion and a little paprika . Put this on the stove with a splash of water and heat it up for a few minutes to release more flavors. Simple and much healthier for you.

Now onto mayo….commercial mayonnaise is full of vegetable oil which is the work of the devil in terms of inflammation. Bad oils equal bad membranes equals bad health. Also on the ingredient list is sugar and other preservatives that you don’t need. 12 grams of bad oil per tablespoon. Mayo is the most popular condiment in the world according to Chef Schmidt. You can make a healthy mayo by starting with lemons or lemon juice….to the lemon juice you add two egg yolks and mix aggressively to form an emulsion. Throw in some mustard which works to help form the emulsion. Now you drizzle in the olive oil slowly so it emulsifies properly. The secret is to slowly add the olive oil to make the emulsion properly. Add salt to taste and you have a healthy homemade mayonnaise.

Finishing up with salad dressing. Almost all of the commercial salad dressings contain the omega 6 rich bad seed oils like canola or sunflower oil and sugars. Primal Kitchen, Skinny Girl and Braggs are usually made with real olive oil and those three are fine but the others are a mess and have tons of bad ingredients/preservatives.

Chef Schmidt recommends cherry wine vinegar because it’s chock full of polyphenols. But any vinegar is fine…use olive oil in a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio with the vinegar. Chop some shallots and mix in. A touch of mustard ( can be dry mustard). Throw in some salt to taste (and I only recommend “lite” salt which is half sodium and half potassium which is much much healthier for you).