"Low-sodium diets?" Topic

Anyone here on one? If so, are there any suggestions that y'all can give on what to look for in terms of sodium content in canned/packaged foods? I'd like to know what's a good rule of thumb to go by.

Thank you.

Read the label. The salt content is usually the vast bulk of the sodium in food. In the UK most labels will tell you the potion of recommended daily maximum for salt in the product. From the fist package to hand 6.5 grams of salt max per day.

edit:- the labels normally say how much salt too

x42

Thanks, x42. I do, in fact, read the labels, and am amazed at the amount of either salt or sugar that is put into pre-packaged foods. Of course they're there as flavoring, but that much? Also, since families going out west during our expansion days carried beef or pork in salt as a preservative, I'd guess the practice of it today is a carryover from those old pioneer days. Still, it's rather irksome to not be able to go to the store and find low-sodium food right off the shelf.

Again, if I won the lottery….

Sag,
Fresh or frozen stay away from canned.

Tomato paste instead of sauce

"If so, are there any suggestions that y'all can give on what to look for in terms of sodium content in canned/packaged foods?"

That's easy! Just assume that any canned or packaged foods will be horribly high! (Including those labeled as "low sodium" or "reduced sodium").

Has your doctor given you guidelines for your daily intake? You don't really have to account for what is naturally in "real" food (nutritional guides will be able to tell you how much is in a stalk of celery, for example.) But you do need to limit what's added as NaCl or MSG to processed foods.

(The missus is reciting her litany: no bacon, no ham, so sausages, limited cheese… and amending it: eat two pieces of bacon, not a pound at a sitting… avoid processed entrees and vegetables; things that come in cheese sauce, most canned soups… eat unprocessed food as much as possible: real fruits, real vegetables, real meat… reduce the amount of salt you add to these as your palate adjusts to a lesser amount…)

Salt as a preservative doesn't really carry over to the deadly amounts in modern processed food. Much of the salt preservative was removed in the preparation of cooking process, or diluted in other foods. You don't eat salt cod without a LOT of soaking! And your body does require salt in order for cellular processes to work properly.

But over time, the popular palate has become conditioned to perceive increasingly higher amounts of salt and sugar as "tasting good". And the processed food companies have seized on that in order to stay competitive. (Not to mention the huge increase in the amount of processed sugar encouraged by the sugar companies over the last hundred+ years. Our forebears got by on molasses and honey and maple sugar; white sugar was a rare luxury. Now it's cheap and common and pushed on us like other white powders.)

Fortunately, the process is reversible. As you use less and less salt in your food, your palate will need less and less for things to "taste good". And you can ameliorate the perceived loss in flavor by increasing the use of other flavorings: garlic, herbs, peppers, lemon juice, vinegar.

Yep, it's a pain if you're not into cooking. But health-wise there's a lot of good that comes from getting into dealing with simple, basic, GOOD food.

Don't hesitate to PM your crazy hippie Uncle Allen and Aunt Nancy for more suggestions!

Allen

Aunt Nancy sez (she always gets the last word): when making a recipe--for anything: baked goods, barbecue sauce, grits (the three-syllable kind)--try using half the salt called for in the recipe. Evaluate the product. There's a good chance that you won't notice the difference. Next time, cut it to a quarter, and evaluate again. Recipes are notorious for calling for more salt than the minimum necessary for your palate to perceive the enhanced flavor; doubling or tripling the amount as many recipes do doesn't really make it taste better.

Likewise, if doubling a recipe, try keeping the salt the same as for a single recipe, and see what happens.

Now there are a few things in which salt is still necessary to carry out a process: salting cukes to remove the water for pickling, for example; or pickling in general as a preservative. That's why pickles should probably be limited, too: there are 330mg in half a Claussen dill!!! Some say salt is also required as a dough or yeast conditioner; SWMBO would argue that, as she bakes a lot, and gets by with much less than is usually called for…

Allen

Thank you Uncle Allen and Aunt Nancy.

It's not me, actually, but my Mom. Her doctor's prescribed high blood pressure medication, and since I'm taking care of her full-time (because of her dementia), I'd like to see that she eats food with as little hidden sodium as possible. She still likes the taste of salt, though, and it's been a real chore to get her off it.

I do, in fact, like to cook. I used to hate it back when I was young and thought I had lots of other things to do (you know how that goes), but then again, I'm still a young man! Even so, I should begin to watch what I eat as well, since my older brother, and now my Mom, take HBP meds. I can do without the salt, I guess, but it's that once in a while hankerin' for, let's say, Jack In The Box or Taco Bell. Sure, I've heard that, maybe once or twice a month, it won't hurt, and I don't eat out that often, anyway. It's just that in our time-rushed culture, it's very easy to go, say, two, three, or maybe more days through the drive-thru before you get sick of it. Fortunately, it'll take me two days straight on average before I want something "homemade".

My Mom's also a Type-2 diabetic, and it seemed easy when she was first diagnosed (17 years ago) to find and eliminate the sugar, but she wasn't "set in her ways" then as now. As for me…cheese, pickles, lunch meat….those would be rather tough for me to give up, if and when I had to. Then again, I like to cook, and if I had the buku millions that I wish for, I'd cook just about every day! Still, because of acid reflux, I had to give up ice cream every night, which I really don't miss, surprisingly. As a matter of fact, I can be satisfied with a glass of ice water after a meal, and I'm good to go until bedtime. I guess I can change, too.

A question, though. I've heard pro and con about sea salt? What say you, please? Thank you for the responses so far, y'all. I really appreciate them very much!

Well, Nancy's dealing with high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes, so that's actually why we're a lot more conscious nowadays. She recently had to deal with a sudden spike in potassium, adjusting her diuretics and BP meds to reduce the amount in the system.

With the HBP and diabetes, keep an eye on Mom's kidney function; I assume your doctor has her on regular renal panel blood tests?

Sea salt: some say that it tastes better because of various trace minerals. I tend to think it's more that the larger crystals have a "sudden impact" on the tongue. In any case, using it instead of regular iodized or kosher salt shouldn't make any difference as far as BP is concerned, unless somehow you find that you can use less to make things "taste good". As always, salting to taste at the table generally requires less salt than in cooking. But with Mom's condition, it might not be a good idea to leave the salt shaker out.

And keep in mind that some people are more sensitive to salt than others where HBP is concerned.

And some people use potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride as a salt substitute. But check with your doctor on that specifically. It may not work well with BP meds. In Nancy's case, she had to drop her prescribed potassium chloride supplement to get her potassium level down.

Best thing to do is to talk to the doctor as much as possible. And that gets complicated, too. The GP dealing with the HBP and diabetes in general has a different set of concerns than, say, the nephrologist monitoring kidney function, or other specialists. In our case, we've been given two different sets of acceptable ranges for fasting blood sugar levels! But the info you can pry out of them, the better you'll feel about it.

Allen

I am also on a salt restricted diet. In Canada our food packaging requires the label to show the amount of salt and the % of our daily maximum this represents. Calculating back, the daily maximum, according to Canadian guidelines, is between 2000-2400 mg per day. (yes there is that much of a discrepancy). That is for a healthy individual. For someone with moderate high blood pressure (diastolic is 100 mm Hg or less) I would recommend aiming for 2/3 of that amount.

As stated, stay away from processed and canned foods. Our society has become infatuated with the taste of salt. We even add salt to fruit juices nowadays. What sort of idiot drinks a glass of Kiwi/Strawberry juice and thinks to himself, "Hey, what this refreshing beverage really needs now is 90mg (per cup!!)of table salt. That'll fix it!"? Well, the buying public actually prefers the salted juice to the unsalted juice, in the marketing taste tests.

But, our bodies have a wonderful tool to help us out. It is the sodium pump. Eat high potassium foods and your body will pump out an ion of sodium for every potassium ion absorbed. Pick your treat, bananas or (my favorite) kiwi.

Sorry about the loved ones with high blood pressure and adult onset diabetes. That's a double whammy. As you have found out, the potassium can lead to hyperkalemia. You guys seem to be on the right path.

Sea salt is the darling of the cooking cognoscenti and the chefs on the cooking channels, probably because it is non-iodized. Other than that, there is no difference in bodily effects. Learn to eat with less salt and your taste buds will adjust. Eventually, you will not be able to "choke down" a can of chicken soup. Much too briny.

My BP is down, I'm exercising more, and I've formed a close relationship with my pepper mill!

Ralph

Oh Ya, interesting fact. Salt is the only rock that we mine, and then eat.

Do Whataburgers with grilled onions and a side of fries have too much salt? Chinese Food? Mexican food?!?! Dang.

Seriously, I just bought a little doohicky of "Mrs Dash" salt substitute. The thing is, I LOVE processed foods like spaghetti sauce or frozen meals cuz of the time they save me. But I guess I aint gettin any younger

I reckon it's time to get rid of of my old salt-lick.

Meep!