By integrating innocuous ingredients into your meals, you can boost the nutritional value without assaulting your taste buds. If you use ingredients with a huge vitamin and mineral punch, you won’t even notice their presence in your meals. Their undetectable nature is a definitely a good thing, since many of these beneficial ingredients may seem a bit strange at first. Check it out.

Spirulina

Spirulina, which is a green algae that grows on water, easily combines with food once broken down into its powder form. Just one tablespoon of this ingredient provides nearly 100mg of potassium, 4g of protein and plenty of iron. Although you can pack the powder in capsules yourself for a quick dose each day, it can be fun to integrate it into your food instead. Mix the powder into guacamole, sprinkle over cooked spinach or stir into fried rice to boost the nutritional value of your meals.

Seaweed

Small quantities of seaweed provide plenty of vitamin C, vitamin A and potassium without raising the calories of your meal by much at all. You can snack on seaweed all by itself if you like its rich, salty flavor. Roasted, flavored seaweed also comes in snack-sized bites from a number of retailers. If you do not love the flavor, you can camouflage seaweed into green-heavy meals. Seaweed works well broken up over salads or mixed into stir-fry dishes made with broccoli and edamame.

Wheatgrass

The days of taking wheatgrass shots are nearly over, but that does not mean you need to banish this substance from your diet. Wheatgrass consumption allows you to easily boost your protein, vitamin K and niacin intake for the day. You can pour blended wheatgrass into your fruit and vegetable smoothies to easily down this flavorful substance.

Chia Seeds

With low carb diets gaining in popularity, chia seeds are starting to see their day in the limelight. Chia seeds provide calcium, potassium, iron and magnesium. These little seeds are packed with fiber, which will keep you full throughout the day. You can create pudding from the seeds by soaking them in heavy cream or milk overnight. Mix in fruit, cocoa powder or vanilla extract to season your pudding mixture.

Nutritional Yeast

You can improve your iron and protein numbers for less than healthy meals by sprinkling on some nutritional yeast. You can also add the yeast powder to sauces and broth to hide its rather strong taste. Many people value this ingredient for its full range of amino acids in its protein profile. You can also find yeast fortified with B vitamins for an energy boost.

Dandelion Greens

Dandelion greens growing wild outside your house are just waiting to come in and give you a healthy start to your day. The greens offer immense amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. You can make tea out of the greens or use them to dress up your favorite salad. The greens also mix well as a green base for your veggie based juices.