The Skinny Thing: Hot Sauce

I don’t have the downlow on how to be thin yet, but if there is one thing all dieters (and frankly all eaters) should keep in their fat fighting arsenal it is a good quality hot sauce. By good, I mean one that you like. Hot sauce is brilliant because it packs flavour with so very few calories and can pep up your dinner easily in place of less waist friendly condiments. Just as example your average tablespoon of mayo costs at least 90 calories vs about 10 in the same amount of hot sauce. And you will never use the same amount of hot sauce as you would mayo or bbq sauce or the like.
I’m not a believer in subbing artificial sweeteners to make your ketchup nice or weird cabbage bacteria gunk to fat up non-fat mayonnaise. If you want to last long term, learn to like other things. Retrain your palate so you don’t become so reliant on Helmann’s Light to eat that you can’t possibly consider passing up a full fat splat of the white stuff when the skinny version isn’t available. Chances are if you’re a fan of creamy things they mess with your calorie intake in many guises and you seek out the heavy sauces, the softer cheeses and the buttery biscuit bases. Going for adulterated versions of creamy fat stuff doesn’t stop you from wanting it, which is half the battle. In other words, get over it and get on to something better for you- you can start with hot sauce. Maybe you don’t like it but then have you really tried to? There was a time when you didn’t like coffee or beer you know. Maybe you still don’t but in that case you are probably beyond help.

There are many alleged diet benefits of the main hot sauce ingredient- the chilli pepper. They melt fat. They stem your appetite. They burn the crap out of your lips so you don’t crave bad food you can’t taste any more and my favourite- they are Detoxifying. It is amazing how many Detoxifying magic foods there are around now.  Goodness knows how we only managed with our own kidneys and water until all those were discovered.
Sarcastic interlude over,  chillis are packed full of stuff that is bona-fide good for you like Vitamin E for all that skin you’ll be flashing when your bikini bod is ready. If that’s not enough then try Capsaicin which acts as an anti inflammatory in the body and is shown to have anti fungal properties. Wikipedia also tells us that the burning sensation of a good hot chilli releases endorphins in the body in a similar way to the pain reflex, and this can give the seasoned chilli-head a cheeky high.

So try some hot sauce on your spuds or in your mash or over chicken or in your salad.  Really try a good shake in your cottage cheese to make it less cottage cheese like. If you aren’t huge on heat start with the smokier chipotle sauces and look for one with vinegar further down the ingredients list as some can be unpleasantly sour. Cholula chili with garlic sauce (click here to buy) is about two quid from sainsburys and very light on the burn but very tasty.
For the more adventurous taster just get out there and fill your basket!  The BBQ trend isn’t going anywhere and there is more to it than pulled pork in every pub menu in the land. All the big supermarkets carry a couple of options now as do your foodie and Asian specialist shops. No, sweet chilli sauce does not count!
Connoisseurs with a bob or two to invest in your pantry should get to The Rib Man and try one of his many yummy hot wares (which you can look at by clicking here). Holy Fuck sauce is great for packing some real heat without sourness. Fuckyuzu is better. Christ on a Bike is a bit too scary for me but I will get to it one day.

Give some a go, you might like it. You might love it, and I promise it wont make you fat. But let’s be honest hot sauce alone won’t shift the pounds any more than it will stop you ever wanting cake again. It will not Detoxify you. Use it as a tasty low calorie sauce alternative, not as a dressing on your camembert!!!