Sauces

Do any of you use sauces with your food? If so; what criteria do you use for selecting them?

I do but I use hot sauces: tabasco, ghost chili, oriental pepper sauces, etc. Very low cal (usually 0-5 cal) and they promote sloooowwww eating. If a sauce has added sugars or sugar shows up on the nutrition info, I usually steer clear. I will occasionally use sirachi sauce and others which have 5 cal per serving, but a bottle lasts a long time.

My program allowed hot sauces during full liquids to add variety to the constant diet of soups.

You have to decide if adding a few cal is worth the enhancement of variety, flavor, and slower eating. Also sauces are like everything else post-op: reintroduce new things one at a time, and gradually to see how its tolerated.

Thanks, that is sounds advice and a reasonable approach.

I usually keep my protein (meet) "naked" and may dip in a side of pre measured sauce. I go by flavor and count the calories/carbs/fat. A few examples are Remoulade, Greek yogurt with spices that go with my dish, mayo, soy, steak

I like sauces; but see that as a potential pitfall. But, I'm not sure I could do the naked meat approach! ;-)

I love sauces, but they can easily get out of control.  It is very tempting to put sauce on meat because it makes it go down easier.  A lot of the time I will cook meat until it is tender in its on juice or add some low sodium chicken or beef broth.  I also cook with tomatoes, like chili, and other stews.

Greek yogurt makes a nice sauce for meat and fish.  Just add some herbs and spices to perk it up.  I eat a lot of salad with my meals and I always use a full fat dressing with no sugar added.  I use a lot less of it than I would like to, but it helps with eating meat, a bite of salad, a bite of meat.  You won't be able to do this at first, you need to eat protein first.  But after you are out a while and can get in enough protein without any problem, you can mix it up with salad and other veggies.

I do use mayo, but I limit it.  A lot of people use a crockpot to keep meat moist.  I don't use any bottled or prepared sauces because they usually have a lot of sugar, starch and preservatives.  I never eat ketchup, it just isn't worth the calories.

Have you checked out Dukes Mayonnaise? Their regular Mayo does not have sugar in it. Wonderful stuff! Thanks for telling me about the yogurt. I would not have thought of that.

Ya, Greek yogurt is my new mayonnaise, sour cream, cream cheese, you name it.

I eat hot sauce and sugar free ketchup. That's it. Others have too many calories.

I completely understand. I want to be careful with this too.