Please make your own hummus and leave that supermarket stuff behind
Thought you were being nice and healthy by spreading hummus on your brown bread or spelt cracker: WRONG. Supermarket hummus is packed with fat, salt and calories, says a dietitian. Homemade is better for you, and a lot tastier too.
Making your own hummus really isn’t that complicated either: cook chickpeas until tender, then purée them with a pinch of salt and, if necessary, a little of the cooking water. A squeeze of lemon juice, a clove of garlic or a little salt makes the hummus even tastier. Before you eat it, you can drizzle a little olive oil over it. Honestly, you don’t need to make it any more complicated than that. ‘The hardest part of this recipe is opening the can of chickpeas,’ says cookbook author Karin Luiten.
Sugar in it?
So what’s the deal with that supermarket hummus? It contains vitamin B, fibre, protein and iron, so that’s good, but dietitian Berdien van Wezel still isn’t very enthusiastic about it. ‘Ready-made hummus is very high in calories, and it contains a lot of saturated fat and salt. That’s not very good for your kidneys,’ she tells AD. Sugar is even added to hummus with an exotic flavour, and the dietitian doesn’t approve of that either.
