What is it Wednesday? – Nutritional Yeast

What it looks like?

[source]                                                    [source]

What is it?

Nutritional Yeast is an ingredient or condiment that is popular with vegans, vegetarians and health eaters. Its available in flakes or as a yellow powder and is described as having a nutty, cheesy, or creamy flavor.
Nutritional yeast is a deactivated yeast which allows for nutrients to be absorbed into the body as apposed to active yeasts which continue to grow in your intestines, robbing your body of nutrients.  It also won’t produce any alcohol or bubbles.

Health benefits?

Nutritional Yeast is naturally low in fat and sodium.  It’s also a source of vitamins (especially B vitamins) and complete protein.

How to use it?

Nutritional yeast can be used in many different meals as an ingredient or a condiment.

Some popular uses:

  • Cheese substitute
  • popcorn topping
  • Garlic bread

Or mixed in or as a topping in the following:

  • potatoes
  • tofu
  • eggs
  • stir-fry
  • pasta sauce
  • gravy

VC&C thoughts:

I’ve been reading about people using Nutritional Yeast on many blogs over the last year.  I thought it sounded interesting but I had absolutely no idea what it was or how to use it.  Whenever I hear of yeast my brain immediately goes to beer or bread.  Clearly Nutritional Yeast was not like beer or bread I could tell this by how people were using it.

Now that I know a little more about Nutritional Yeast I plan on trying it out.  I’ll most likely test it out as a popcorn topping first and who knows where I will go from there!

One thing is for sure, once I try it I will share what I think here on Veggies, Cake & Cocktails.

Comment away – I am by no means an expert on Nutritional Yeast so feel free to leave more information in the comments.

Please feel free to let me know, in the comments, what food items you would like to know more about.  I will feature it on an upcoming, “What is it Wednesday?” post!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *