I recently heard from someone who asked me, “How terrible would it be for me to add pepper to my Medifast lean and green meals?” I couldn’t clarify whether he was referring to pepper as a spice or pepper as a vegetable. So in the next article, I will address both scenarios.
Adding spices to your Medifast meals: Honestly, adding a few spices to any food can make a big difference to the taste of that food and the intensity of the flavors. Medifast allows you to add spices to your meals, but as you may suspect, they ask you to do so within reason. Seasonings are considered condiments, at least for the purposes of this diet. The guidelines state that no seasoning should have more than one gram of carbohydrates per serving (this primarily refers to syrups and sauces). Pepper contains no carbohydrates, so you don’t have to worry about that. However, you are asked to limit any food that falls into the condiments category to three servings per day. The serving size given for pepper used as a spice in the guidelines is 1/2 tsp.
You may want to keep in mind that the serving sizes for dried spices and herbs are smaller than fresh ones. For example, the serving size for fresh cilantro is a whole cup. You can also have a whole cup of basil and dill. You can have a quarter cup of fresh parsley. But if the spice dries out, the serving size decreases. For example, if the dill herb is dried, you can take a teaspoon instead of a cup. You can have more dried cilantro (in a tablespoon). But this is substantially less than if you had the cup of cool. Some of my favorite spices are garlic powder and onion powder. (Yes, these are dry, but a little goes a long way.) Sometimes I add this to soups, chili, or sloppy joe, in addition to lean, green food.
And if you like spicy food (as I suppose you do, since this article is all about pepper), you should know that you can get a little spicy and spicy with sauces too. You are allowed to have two tablespoons of hot pepper sauce, one tablespoon of horseradish, and 1/2 tablespoon of Wasabi.
As for the pepper that is a vegetable, you can take half a cup with the lean and green flour. The serving size is somewhat limited because bell peppers contain slightly more carbohydrates than low-glycemic vegetables.
But to answer the question posed, no matter what type of pepper you are referring to, yes, you can have the hot pepper and the vegetable pepper in Medifast.