A method of imaging the individual components of systems with sparse spectra using magnetic resonance imaging including the steps of a) exciting nuclei of labeled components using a MRI pulse sequence, b) selecting a proper spectral window to avoid/minimize signal overlap of aliased frequency components. In step a) preferably a spiral chemical shift imaging (spCSI) sequence is employed. In a preferred embodiment, hyperpolarized nuclei of 13C are used for labeling in a pyruvate substrate with metabolites of lacatate, alanine, and bicarbonate.