Cooking and Eating No Salt Added Diet

WHAT? NO SALT????

by Mary Katherine May

If you are a person who truly enjoys well-seasoned food with adequate saltiness this is really tough.  But the choice can come down to being alive or dead.  The reality is that high blood pressure and its complications, stroke and heart attacks kill.  A family history where this is happened before doesn't make any of us immune, it makes us vulnerable.

Recommended daily salt intake is
one measly teaspoon for people up
to 51 years old, less if older.

The recommended amount of table salt day is 1 measuring teaspoon. That's it.  If you start reading labels you will see how MUCH salt is added to EVERYTHING.  And the thing about salt is that the more you use the more you want.

I have high blood pressure.  I went to a specialist called a nephrologist who over the course of several months found the right combination of medications to bring the numbers into the normal range, and after one year I believe some tweaking needs to be done.

Now don't think you can change your salt habits without effort.  It can, however, be done.  Nearly everything you might buy in the store that is canned, boxed, frozen or packaged is full of added salt.  Salt is a preservative that people like.

My Rick and I have gone to cooking at home with one-ingredient foods.  That means that the food we use for the most part has one name only: beets, chicken, lettuce, beef, oats, etc.  Not all home cooking takes a lot of time.  It's now how long food takes to prepare, it is what food you use for your meals and snacks.

Enough about me.  To start off, here are a few suggestions that I have learned from experience.

1. Using vinegar on salads is healthy but some are pretty strong. Rice vinegar is fairly mild and a nice change from the darker vinegars like balsamic and red wine.

Our taste buds say that Heinz is tastier than Hunts.

2. As a ketchup enthusiast I just cannot give up my ketchup.  We tried two no salt added ketchups that are available online and in many supermarkets.  Heinz no-salt ketchup is very close to their regular version.  I found Hunts no-salt added ketchup way too sweet for my palate. We bought a case of the Heinz on amazon and didn't have to pay shipping.  The Hunts we bought in a local supermarket and didn't even finish using our supply because of the sweetness dominating the tomato flavor.

3. Many of the mixed seasonings that are no salt include chili powder.  This may be something you want to check.  Taste testing so far leads me to recommend Chef Paul Prudhomme no-salt seasonings.  In the Mrs. Dash line I prefer the extra spicy mix.

4. With soy sauce I have found that a little bit of it flavors the dish just as much as a larger bit.  On one visit to the grocery store Rick and I must have read every soy sauce label for sodium content.  Honestly, light or regular doesn't matter. Don't fool yourself into thinking that the lite sauces give you carte blanche permission to indulge. They are all extremely high in salt content.

5.  My new discovery that was actually introduced to me by a fellow bookseller is fresh rosemary in home cooked chicken soup and broth.  It is on the perfumey side so if you haven't cooked soup with it before use caution.  What I do is use a tea ball.  I put my rosemary and whole peppercorns into the ball--then I get the flavor without the spikey rosemary leaves and don't have to dig the peppercorns out of the soup.

6.  A teaspoon to a tablespoon of lemon juice added to cooking food can add a nice zippy flavor without adding burning spice.

Yigantes (Gigantes) Giant Lima Beans

7. During the last Lenten season we discovered these huge Yigantes (Gigantes) Greek lima beans and tasty meatless dish.  It's great any time of the year.

8. When cooking dried beans I add some baking soda to the water when soaking.  This adds salt flavor to the beans and also allows a portion to be drained off if there is excess water.  Also good for bean gas.  But be cautious and watched the cooked pot--beans soaked in baking soda will boil over in the blink of an eye.

9. When soaking dried beans and grains add onion and garlic, hot peppers if you like to the water.  This will give great flavor to the whole beans while they soften and cook.

Honest truth: It is easier to kick the salt habit if you like a little or a lot of spice on your foods.  Heat goes a long way toward eliminating the desire for sodium rich foods. Your likes and dislikes need to be compatible with your goals of better eating habits or you will never stick with it.

Don't give up when you slack off.  Don't quit trying to improve your eating habits.  Sometimes it is impossible to keep on task when you are out to dinner at a friend's home, traveling or on vacation.  Just DO NOT QUIT.

There are many sites with recipe calculators, some free and some with a fee that most likely offer more options.  Just today I discovered the sparkpeople site.  With a recipe calculator you can put in the food or recipe ingredients you are going to eat or use and it will give you calorie and nutrition information.  It's a great tool for figuring portions, calories and other things when you must cook your own dishes with one-ingredient foods.

I looked at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) information on counting carbohydrates in foods.  The problem is that their recommendation is to read labels.  Have you ever seen a label on a cabbage or beet or tomato you picked from your garden?  So, it seems, that logical as it may sound for the ADA to tell diabetics to read labels with such instructions they really don't encourage eating healthy, home cooked food.

October 6, 2013: I used the spark people recipe calculator site to enter the ingredients I put into one of my favorite meals, a one-serving pot of no salt added chicken soup.  If you wanted it less spicy all you need to do is eliminate some of the pepper.  This is a gigantic serving.  I couldn't finish it.  Total calories according to the recipe calculator: 426. Sodium: 250 mg. Carbs: 32.6.