By Heide Kennedy, Arizona Farm Bureau Communications Intern
A little fun fact about me is that one of my absolute favorite foods in the whole world is pickles. In my opinion, the more sour and bitter the pickle, the better. This is why we always have a huge gallon jar of Best Maid’s Sour Pickles in our fridge at all times, and I frequently eat whole pickles by myself. While I adore pickles plain, I discovered one day that slicing them up and slathering mustard on them makes them even better! Everyone who has seen me do this thinks I’m insane, and I will agree it’s a little weird. But some things are just better together, and it doesn’t just have to do with flavor either. Did you know that pairing certain foods together can actually improve your body’s ability to absorb nutrients from those foods?
According to registered dietician Jordan Hill
, there are many different combinations of foods that contain nutrients that work synergistically as they aid in bodily processes. To make it even better, she says that many of them taste great together too! Some of them are as follows:
- Salmon and asparagus – The fats in the salmon help to absorb vitamins A, E, D, and K, which are in lots of green veggies.
- Tomatoes and avocados – The fats in avocados help the body to absorb carotenoids, an antioxidant compound found in red, yellow, and orange fruits and vegetables.
- Eggs and Greek yogurt – Vitamin D is best absorbed when eaten with a source of calcium.
- Oranges and nuts – The iron in nuts is best absorbed when consumed with vitamin C.
- Oatmeal and yogurt – Oatmeal is a good source of prebiotics, which feeds the probiotics in fermented foods such as yogurt.
Those pairings listed above are just a few examples. The key to pairing foods together isn’t really the foods themselves, rather it’s the nutrients of each one being synergistic with each other, so there are lots of different combinations you can explore! Unfortunately, pickles and mustard probably don’t offer any kind of nutritional benefits, but they sure do taste good together!
For more articles about nutrition, check out the Fill Your Plate website!