Mirage News
Mirage News
Mirage NewsHealth19 Aug 2026 1:54 am AESTDate Time
Research review examines if adding some extra flavor to healthier dishes can increase meal satisfaction
Adding herbs and spices can improve the satisfaction of eating healthier foods that include less fat and sugar and have higher protein density, especially for older populations. The findings could be applicable to those on medically restricted diets but face some hurdles in adoption – including fewer at-home cooks with experience to know what herbs and spices to use to improve flavor
Adding as little as a quarter of a teaspoon of herbs and spices to dishes could help make meals healthier while boosting taste satisfaction. Those insights were published in a recent issue of Nutrition Reviews, summarizing years of collected research that assessed ways to increase how well liked varied meals containing less fat, sugar and higher protein content were when adding a “culinary dose” of herbs and spices
“We tested adding certain herbs and spices to breakfast, lunch and dinner items using randomized controlled trials with around 150 people per test item in these studies that really dug into practical applied science,” said John Peters, PhD, a recently retired professor of endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes at the CU Anschutz School of Medicine
Peters has spent decades studying nutrition, obesity, diabetes and other related conditions and seeking different approaches and strategies for people, including older populations who may have dietary challenges, to live and eat more healthily. In the following Q&A, he explains the role herbs and spices can play in diet modification, the challenges reducing sugar in a diet can present, and the hurdles researchers in this area face today – from increased use of GLP-1 drugs to fewer cooks in homes across the country.
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