Decrease the Salt & Keep the Taste in Cooking

Sodium intake should be watched carefully and measured daily. Too much sodium can drive up blood pressure in some people and cause serious compliications in other existing conditions and diseases in others. Both DH and I need to go on a low-salt diet for various reasons. I'm learning just how detrimental the effect of too much salt can be in a person's daily diet. The challenge I pose to you all and am faced with personally is cutting back on salt while keeping recipes/food interesting and and tasty. Like a lot of people, I grew up eating lots of salt on meats and vegetables and also ate many processed foods like canned vegs, soups and entrees. Now, how to learn to live without the stuff I crave. Salt substitutes so far just don't do it for me and I've begun to experiment low-salt meals. Let's talk taking out the salt while keeping the flavor in foods.

Various organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, have published recommendations for daily sodium intake. Most recommend between 1,500 and 2,400 milligrams (mg) a day for healthy adults. A lower sodium intake has a more beneficial effect on blood pressure.

The average U.S. diet has three main sources of sodium:

Processed and prepared foods. Most sodium in a person's diet comes from eating processed and prepared foods, such as canned vegetables, soups, luncheon meats and frozen foods. Food manufacturers use salt or other sodium-containing compounds to preserve food and to improve the taste and texture of food.

Sodium-containing condiments. One teaspoon of table salt has 2,325 mg of sodium, and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce has 1,005 mg of sodium. Adding these or other sodium-laden condiments to your meals — either while cooking or at the table — raises the sodium count of food.

Natural sources of sodium. Sodium naturally occurs in some foods, such as meat, poultry, dairy products and vegetables. For example, 1 cup of low-fat milk has about 110 mg of sodium.

Here are the following guidelines to help reduce the amount of sodium in your diet

Read food labels carefully to determine the amounts of sodium. Learn to recognize ingredients that contain sodium. Salt, soy sauce, salt brine or any ingredient with sodium (such as monosodium glutamate) or baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) as part of its name contains sodium.

Rinsing canned vegetables and fish will remove much of the salt.

Season or marinate meat, poultry, and fish ahead of time with onion, garlic and your favorite herbs before cooking to bring out the flavor.

When dining out words that signal high sodium include: smoked, barbecued, pickled, broth, soy sauce, teriyaki, creole sauce, marinated, cocktail sauce, tomato base, Parmesan, and mustard sauce.

Directions:
Melt butter in a heavy nonstick skillet over medium heat. Saute garlic 1 minute. Add fish, cover pan and reduce heat to low. Cook 3 minutes. Carefully turn fish. Sprinkle with scallion. Cover and continue to cook 2-3 minutes, until fish flakes easily with a fork. Drizzle lemon juice over fish. Recipe makes four servings.

Nutrition facts per serving:
Calories: 247
Fat: 7.3g (28 percent calories from fat)
Cholesterol: 115mg
Protein: 41.4g
Carbohydrate: 1.7g
Fiber: 0.2g
Sugar: 0.5g
Sodium: 127mg

Hi Texas - great idea, so many people need to cut down on their salt intake and there is so much salt in everything we buy.  I am one of the very fortunate ones in that I have low blood pressure and have even been encouraged by my doctor to eat a salty snack when feeling the effects of it.  Imagine that! 

I think the hardest part of being on a low salt diet is eating out.

I will look for some ideas for you tomorrow.  I'll soon be off to bed...

Directions:
In a small mixing bowl combine crushed vanilla wafers, melted margarine or butter, and almond extract; mix well. Reserve 1/4 cup of the crumb mixture. Press remaining crumb mixture in the bottom of a 2-quart square baking dish. Bake in a 375-degree oven for five minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack. Stir toasted almonds into the reserved crumb mixture; set aside.

Scoop ice cream into a chilled bowl. With the back of a spoon, stir and press ice cream against the side of the bowl until softened. Add apricot spread; stir just to marble. Spread ice cream mixture over the cooled crust. Top with reserved crumb mixture. Cover with foil. Freeze several hours or until firm. To serve, cut into squares. Recipe makes 12 servings.

Nutrition Facts per Serving:
Calories 166
Total Fat 6g
Saturated Fat 1g
Cholesterol 11mg
Protein 2g
Total Carbohydrate 26g
Dietary Fiber 1g
Sodium 90mg

Hello all! Coming by late tonight.....dh is at the fitness center right now, I am planning on signing up maybe this weekend, if everythng works out...

Great new topic! I need to cut back on salt, but it is hard! My blood pressure runs a little high so I am hoping that between my diet and excercise I can bring it down, I am also taking over the counter water pills, because I retain water....

Its getting late so I had better get ready for bed!

tty later! Jet

I try to avoid salt as much as I can and DH and I don't miss it. I use very seldom products, like canned soup or vegetables because the sodium contense is so high. When I go shopping I read every label before it goes in my basket. I flavor my food mostly with different types of fresh herbs. I think and try to eat very healthy and try to get a lot of fiber in my diet.

We having today a nice rain again, but it is very cold and the heat is running the whole day.

Bis spaeter

Erna

 Texas,great idea! Thanks for starting a new thread.I hardly use salt,but I do in some salads. I know ,that the canned foods have lots of salt in them.We don't eat potato chips or other salty food,like pretzels with salt. I know,how dangerous this is.

Jet, did your doctor tell you to use water pills. ? Do have your potassium level checked?  You have to eat bananas,tomatoes or other potassium containing foods to replenish the potassium. I hope you don't mind saying this,but you can get terrible leg cramps and feel strange,when this happens.

I will try to find some recipes. We use lots of herbs in our German cooking.

Renate 

It looks like my 2 "empties" brought some action. Just stopped by before going to bed and found this good post. I am also on a low sodium diet and found out about 4 yrs ago that  the "Marmite"  yeast extract (made in England) is excellent for flavoring soups, stews and gravy. It is te samething that guves bouillon cobes/granules their meaty flavor and is extremely low in sodium. Just a little bit goes a long way. Canned veggies can be rinsed 2-3 times and it reduces the sodium by more than half,however I prefer frozen veggies, they taste fresher and have no sodium except the natural sodium they contain.

Glad the subject was broughtup. Too many people et way to much salt.

Good Nightm may drop in again in a few days.

hi texas,

thanks for starting this new thread!!

i think we can al benefit from this - even though i am like berny i have a low blood pressure.

I have been using sea salt and himalaya salt for a very long time - i have also found a great natural seasoning that has no added salt in canada - i think it was in an organic food shop. Many veggies contain a lot of salt that if you cook with them they will give flavor to dishes.

Looking forward to your recipes....

I have to go now - Have a nice day  - Twinkle

Texas, great idea.  Nice recipes as well.  I think many people are addicted to salt.  When DH & I were first married, he hardly salted anything.  I stuck salt in the Czech way of cooking in almost everything.  Now I add about 1/3 of salt to things I cook from the listed recipe.  But not for baking, as DS told me that salt is a leavening agent when in cul. college, but I still add scant amounts.

When we're at business dinner functions, 99% salt their food before tasting it.  Smiling E is right, read those labels before putting something in your grocery cart.

Twinkle & Berny, we learned in nursing school, your body tells you when you need salt or water.  Everyone has a different metabolism which safeguard our electrolite level, which sustains the equilibrium in our body functions.  Twinkle, I use sea salt which I stick into a pepper grinder, seems you don't need as much.  Also, the "wierd" coarse-ground salts we buy at Marshalls, they apparantly get lots of expensive, exotic foods for a good price.

Jet, Renate is right about the water pills, please read the warning labels carefully about side effects.  My sister, who wanted to lose weight took these OTC water pills and became very ill when she used them all the time.

Salty-dog lydia.  I keep forgetting the Atlantic is salt water.  Being used to fresh-water lakes all my life, I sure get a mouthful/noseful/eyeful when I bop around in the ocean.  And then, I realize I'm wearing my glasses while swimming,- that'll get salt in your eyeballs every time.  One thing I do love are salt-water bath stuff; makes your skin very soft.

Renate and Lydia....thanks for the warning! :)

The doctor wanted me to start taking medicine, but I wasn't ready to yet.....I'm wanting to try doing the diet and excercise first and he thought that would be fine, I am making sure that I eat fruit and ect....my dad has low potassium and he eats bananas every day....

I have a small heart problem myself, so I go to the doctor quite often. A lot of my problems is that I'm over weight, but hopefully that will change....

Well I had better get busy!

Later Jet

Jet.I wished I could say,that I will able to lose weight.I tried many things and in 1 1/2 years I lost 12 lbs. I had to get off the diet and gained it back. When my DH got his information about his diabetis diet,we saw, that we eat like this all the time. We only had one extra piece of cake or pie once a day . Maybe when you are older,it is much more difficult to lose weight.But this are ,where my problems are coming from. But I have a few very skinny friends,who have any illness one can imagine. Of course this is not an excuse for me being overweight.[:'(]

 Waving to all of you ladies.I will be back later.Renate

Hello everyone. So glad to hear everyone's input and interest in this subject. Sodium does not affect my BP. There is a small percentage of folks who just aren't bothered by salt in that respect. I am learning however, that it does effect so many other conditions that I never even heard of. The Frisco Food Bank got 4 large brown grocery bags of canned foods like soup and veggies, regular canned tuna etc from us when I went through the pantry. I read all labels now and some single cans of processed food contain enough salt for 2 days of the maximum intake for a normal adult. It's just mind boggling. Tonight we are making a stir fry dish for supper with steamed rice (got a rice cooker for Christmas) and I'm going to make a ginger dressing that has very little salt in it for our salad dressing. When I do use salt now I do prefer just a bit of freshly ground sea salt. A little DOES go a long way. Anyhow, I'll post the stir fry recipe if it turns out.

I have to go and  get ready to go to see a new doctor today. He's a GI. Not looking forward to it or what he has to say. Oh well, must go face the latest round of bad news. Wish me luck. One doctor tells me one thing, another tells me something else. My head is spinning. Maybe one day 2 of them will agree on something.

See y'all later.