<p>My physician has recommended a low-salt diet to me.
My blood pressure is borderline, I had a “significant” birthday and my mother died of heart disease a few months ago. I am motivated. For about three weeks I have been watching my sodium intake carefully and I can tell a huge difference. My leg pain is nearly gone, the swelling is gone, I have lost a few pounds and my blood pressure is coming down.</p>
<p>I have become more aware of just how much excess sodium there is in the food we buy in the grocery store. Reading labels is nauseating! I found that Frosted Mini Wheats has only 5 mg of sodium per serving but I am getting bored with them.
I have also found foods endorsed by the AHA with a significant amount of sodium - doesn’t sound very heart healthy to me.</p>
<p>My SIL just told me about the DASH diet. Anyone tried it? On it now? Favorite low-salt recipe?</p>
<p>my h is on a low-salt diet so basically I am too. Lots of label checking involved.<br>
You probably know to avoid most processed foods. Filled with salt.
Meats, fish, veggies, fruits, brown rice, oatmeal. Salt-free pretzels.
I season with lots of things other than salt…TJs sells a good all-purpose seasoning.
If you need to use jarred spaghetti sauce, check the labels. The ones with roasted garlic tend to be less salty.<br>
Stay away from canned soup…even the low-salt ones are filled with sodium.
Also, avoid eating out. Restaurants over salt their food cause it make it taste better to most folks.
In our case, our tastes have adjusted. We visited family recently and they served heavily salted steaks…wow, they all loved them but we were overwhelmed. And when they come to our house, they use the salt shaker…big time.</p>
<p>DH had a mild heart attack in May and was put on a low-sodium diet. I have since learned that the daily recommended amount of sodium for ANYONE is about 2,000 mg a day. I suggest everyone read the nutrition labels of canned and frozen foods that they think are healthy – a can of “light” soup, vegetables, etc. It is shocking to me that food companies can get away with stuffing Americans with sodium this way. People don’t realize how bad it is for them and they don’t realize how much sodium they are consuming. It is pretty challenging to find any kind of prepared foods that is not loaded with sodium. </p>
<p>My husband uses something called 21 Seasoning Salute from Trader Joes that he likes a lot – it is salt free. Penzey’s spices (online) has a selection of sodium free spices. I haven’t bought any online because the shipping fees make it expensive. Here are a few things DH likes. He likes to take peppers, mushrooms and onions and use the egg substitute for an omelette in the morning with wheat toast (he loves the Milgrams brand which can be gotten at TJs or Costco.) Also likes TJ’s raisin bran. We have an ice-cream/frozen yogurt maker and he makes his own frozen yogurt with non-fat yogurt and fruit which he loves. He loves the Trader Joe’s carrot-zuchinni bread which is sodium free (in fact some of their other baked goods are sodium free if you check.) Oatmeal is, of course, the perfect food for just about every health condition, including cardio-vascular, and can be doctored up with fruit. We make our own pasta sauce – fresh tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms, garlic – a little wine, red pepper flakes and whole wheat pasta. The nice thing about pasta sauce is you can make a big batch and freeze some. Same thing if you can find a low-sodium chili recipe and make it with ground turkey (I haven’t done it but I’m sure it is doable.) For a while, he would make a big batch of beans every week and keep it in the fridge but beans can get pretty boring after a while. </p>
<p>I have never cooked with salt since I was a teen-ager and my Dad had to restrict sodium, so that was not an issue for us. Fresh herbs are great. It’s easy to brown chicken in olive oil and throw in fresh tarragon or other herbs and maybe a little wine or some mushrooms. We like to grill salmon on the BBQ – just put it in foil, pierce with a fork and put garlic or ginger or lemon on it. The main thing is having food in the house he can quickly eat when hunger strikes. You can get low-sodium turkey at some grocery store delis. With the right bread and so forth, a healthy sandwich is always available. Some canned tunas and salmons are also okay. It helps to use your sodium where it is hard to avoid and cut it where it is easier – 2,000 is still a lot to play with once you have the hang of it. We keep lots of fruits and veggies on hand as well as non-fat yogurt. It’s worth getting good olive oil and good balsamic vinegar – we make our own dressing with that and garlic powder (not garlic salt) and freshly ground pepper. Salt-free prepared foods are a trial and error affair. I bought some salt-free chocolate sauce and it tasted just like the vilest cough syrup. Oh – and he likes the low-sugar fruit preserves at TJs and I believe he’s found low-sodium peanut butter. Or sometimes he splurges by having a spoon of low fat peanut butter (with some sodium) and the preserves on wheat bread. I think the low-sodium peanut butter doesn’t taste great but he’s okay with it. He also can’t have saturated fat or a lot of sugar (diabetes) which makes things a bit more challenging. It sounds like you can have those things which might give you some other options. If I think of more fave foods later, I’ll post. Good luck. When we first saw the diet restrictions, out hearts sank. But I think he’s found a diet lifestyle that he thinks he can live with. He never counts calories – just eats as he’s supposed to, walks an hour a day and has lost almost 25 pounds. It makes me think that if more Americans followed the guidelines that cardiac patients have, we’d be a much slimmer society.</p>
<p>Has your doctor spoken to you about a diuretic? A low dose diuretic - and the generic pills are nearly free - can help significantly. (Note that for men diuretics can cause erectile dysfunction - and may be one of the drivers of demand for Viagra.)</p>
<p>You’ll find that most grocery chains have no salt added tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, etc. but that all prepared foods are dosed liberally with salt. You’ll have to cook more from scratch. My suggestion is to think about the spices you use. Most Americans only have a rack of ancient spices on their counter and barely use those while much of the world uses a wide array. Try Penzey’s - which is online and has stores in a few places - and you’ll see there’s a ton of options for making food flavorful. </p>
<p>One other point, switch your salt to kosher salt - Diamond Crystal being the standard. Kosher salt is less salty because it is larger crystals designed to suck up animal blood in the koshering process. Chefs use it because they can salt food evenly without making it taste salty.</p>
<p>Marantha Organic Peanut butter…it’s low salt and very tasty. Available at Whole Foods. I get the no stir kind cause I hate all that oil on top.
I’ve also heard that it’s good to use Celtic Sea Salt although I haven’t tried it.
Mim nailed the name of the TJs seasoning…really excellent. They also have a good low sodium turkey for sandwiches.
Garlic, lemon, spices, herbs…all your friends.
After many years of doing this, I don’t find it hard at all.</p>
<p>Cooking from scratch will serve you well.
I use salt in cooking but since it is all home made I am probably not using too much - when I have company for dinner most people will ask for a salt shaker…
Cold cuts are off limits here. If you stop eating them, after a while you will see how salty they really are. I roast my own meats and that is what we put on sandwiches. Mrs.Dash is good!</p>
<p>Great post mimk6! You guys are all great!
I have been well under 2000 mg of sodium/day. More in the range of 1000 mg.</p>
<p>I never was big on salt or adding salt to cooking. Never thought I added much at all but 1/4 tsp of salt has 500 mg!<br>
anyway - I did find out that after a week of basically no salt, when I ate a food with salt it tasted saltier to me. not sure if that makes sense.</p>
<p>There is no Trader Joe’s near me. Maybe it’s time for a road trip.
I will confess that over the years, when my kids were really busy in high school and ‘no time to cook’, working full time etc… I did rely more and more on processed foods.
They are all just awful. It’s almost criminal how much sodium some contain.
I read everything with a label carefully - check different brands, it’s surprising how much the sodium content differs. Even bread seems to have a wide range of sodium content.
Nabisco is out with crackers that are a “hint of salt”. They have them in Ritz, Saltines, Wheat thins, triscuits etc. They aren’t bad.<br>
Lots of sodium in Instant Oatmeal but none in cooking oatmeal. </p>
<p>I quit all processed meats and cold cuts. I have been taking pb & j on whole wheat bread for lunch. Even that “healthy” turkey sub at Subway is loaded with sodium. 910 mg!!!
I did find canned tuna that is low sodium and it’s good. Expensive, but I am only 1 person now!
If anyone has any ideas for a packed lunch, I am open. I think nearly anything I pack has less salt than anything I would eat out. </p>
<p>My physician did not describe a diuretic. He said since the swelling would go down on it’s own - he would rather try diet first. It has worked.
I definitely want to stay off meds if I can.</p>
<p>High BP and diabetes runs rampant in my family. It’s one thing to try to get low sodium, but when you are also trying to avoid added sugar at the same time, it can get very challenging! If it says “low fat,” it’s often got lots of sugar. Same with low sodium. </p>
<p>Whole foods is the way to go. Processed foods just have too much of all the bad stuff.</p>
<p>After a while eating less salt you start to taste the salt in everything. For example, Cheerios taste salty to me, not sweet.</p>
<p>I second the recommendation for Penzeys spices. I love their spice blends.</p>
<p>If you buy peanut butter made from just peanuts–which would therefore have no salt, no trans fats, etc.–the easiest way to get it NOT to have the oil on top is to dump it all in a bowl, stir it to your satisfaction, then put it back in the jar—and keep the jar in the refrigerator. </p>
<p>You can make a very rich tasting chicken broth–which is one of the areas where I used to really notice that commercial products were loaded with salt–by boiling a chicken carcass with onions, garlic, celery, bay leaf, rosemary. Sometimes I add chile powder too, which really brightens it up.</p>
<p>(Actually, I love chile powder and put it in a lot of things where I used to use salt. My kids claim it’s because my taste buds are all dying of old age. Sweet kids, aren’t they?)</p>
<p>The nutritionist told my husband to keep Cliff bars on hand which he does at work. They are okay for those on low-sodium, low-sugar, low-everything diets.</p>
<p>Suggestion for oatmeal, try the steel cut oats, like McCann’s or some other Irish brand. They take longer to cook but taste much more complex than rolled oats.</p>
<p>My H is on meds for HBP, so I have enjoyed reading all these comments. I feel as though I am in the company of friends!</p>
<p>I nearly fell off my chair when I read a good number of years ago that a serving of Cheerios has more sodium than a serving of potato chips. I checked labels and found that it is true. Ugh! Also beware of cottage cheese. Loads of salt in that! We never eat prepared soups. I enjoy making my own. Kashi cereals tend to be lower in sodium than other brands, and lower in sugar as well. </p>
<p>It is true that the food industry is killing the American population with all of the added sodium. We must make our voices heard!</p>
<p>Thanks for all your suggestions!!
I went shopping on Sat. and spent two hours reading labels. It is truly amazing the amount of sodium in some foods. Our laziness comes back to haunt us.<br>
I did find some Salmon burger in the freezer section with only 250 mg. I hope they are good.<br>
Found 8 oz cans of salt free tomato sauce but nothing bigger
Vegetables - of course frozen are great but if they come with any “sauce” or seasoning, the sodium is quite high.
Bread - this is tough for me. There is a variation but I could have spent an hour in the bread aisle alone. I did find some Pepperidge Farms Deli Flats - they are only 100 calories and 170 mg sodium per roll. less than 2 slices of bread.
I am happy to report that I took my bp yesterday am and it was much lower, almost within normal range!</p>
<p>It’s hard to add much more to the very good suggestions offered here, but here goes…</p>
<p>Yes, you’ll need to cook more at home and consume much fewer processed foods. Kosher salt is the way to go. Adding to your spice collection will reap much benefit in taste. Fresh is best but dried spices can be a good substitute in many dishes. Use lemon often. Some cookbooks have a spice blend recipe that’s a good salt substitute. Much cheaper and tastier than the ‘Mrs. Dash’ and the like. In fact, many of the low-salt varieties of goods are just excuses to gouge the customer. Remember that there are the ‘regular’ variety of brands that are just lower in salt than the competition. For example, I stopped buying most brands of spaghetti sauce in a jar when I discovered that the Del Monte variety in a can has significantly less sodium than most jarred brands. Read your labels and “avoid, avoid, avoid” when you can. But don’t torture yourself.</p>
<p>Start an herb garden and you won’t miss salt. Cook fresh vegtables and add herbs. Let me add also a word about restaurants. Stay away, especially ethnic restaurants.</p>
