As I went around work and outside telling people about my resolution, I received many useful tips on reducing salt in my diet. I am going to document them here so that I can refer back to them when I feel like I am slipping in my resolution.
- Use lemon juice as a garnish. This is an interesting piece of advice and potentially one that might work.
- Use herb blends instead of salt -- Herbmare is expensive for just some herbs and salt in the long run. I am going to try using a lot more spices in my cooking and lessen the salt instead.
- If you like salty snacks, try celery -- okay, this is working. Celery is salty. I am going to have to look up the amount of naturally occurring salt in celery. Why should naturally occurring saltiness be any different in its physiological effects than added salt?
- Do not salt while you are cooking. Add salt in the end. This sounds like good advice. Apparently, "saltiness" gets muted as foods cook and this forces the cook to add more salt. I can actually see this happening in my kitchen because I keep tasting things as they cook and I do salt like the cook in Alice in Wonderland.
Yes, like her. Notice the baton-like salt shaker in the cook's hand.
Well... okay, according to the book, it's some potent pepper mix which makes everyone else sneeze, but that is how I add spices and salt when I cook. If anyone else is there while I am cooking, they eventually end up in a sneezing fit or tell me about how they suddenly have this intense desire to sneeze... or cry (because of all the onions I merrily chopped). Strangely, all this affects me very little or not at all.
PS: Someone actually messaged me and asked me if I eat 4000 GRAMs of salt per day. I did mean milligrams but I can't help wondering what might happen if I really ate 4000 grams of salt a day. Would people be able to use me as a salt-shaker at the cafeteria? *Patron flagging down waitress* "Hey miss, could I have (e:tinypliny) come and dance over here please. Thanks."
I just looked it up in the USDA food and nutrient database and it has 80mg of sodium every 100g of celery - that's around 1.5 stalks of celery. It has more potassium, though - around 260mg for the same 1.5 stalks.
(e:oda), I used the myplate function at livestrong.com :::link::: I tried the food pyramid and the USDA tracker but many foods I regularly ate were missing in their database and it annoyed me all the time. Livestrong's myplate, on the other hand. has almost 95% of what I eat and has the correct nutrition profile for each of the foods. Also, I obsessively wrote down the recipés of everything I cooked and recorded it at livestrong so that I could calculate and track the total sodium. In fact, I started tracking my food to primarily keep a watch on my sodium intake.
I like raw onions a LOT and I get through onions very quickly. I sometimes tear up but most of the time, don't. I have found that If I cut with the stripes/lines and keep the shiny uncut side towards me as I am cutting, I can easily avoid the tears.
I don't know when I will learn to accept low salt food... I really want to and will keep trying. It seems like a very tough resolution right now because I crave salt all the time -- now that I have cut it down. It's so maddening. I dreamed of salt crystals yesterday - it was so very ridiculous!!
White bread? ick. It's been ages since I actually bought any white bread... or for that matter any bread at all. Baking bread at home is such a rewarding little thing to do. I don't want to give it up by buying from the store any more. :-) I LOVE LOVE whole wheat and multigrain bread (I am planning a multigrain weekend as I type!)
Whaaaaaaa? They have pretzels to hold ice-creams. Oooooooh!.
MUST. RESIST. STOP.
I love salt like you do (e:tinypliny). I'm still waiting to have another pretzel cone. If anyone knows of anywhere I can get a nice pretzel cone to put my ice cream in, I will love them for eternity.
It makes sense not to add salt until you are ready to eat. Cooking it only cooks out the salt and makes it drier.
Lemon juice is a very good garnish to increase flavor.
I agree completely (e:oda), when you wear contacts, onion cutting is tear-less. They also protect the eyes from smoke.
Good job for trying this! I can just advise that less-salty food is just something that you have to get used to. And you will. It will just take time and lots of bland-to-you food. Imagine all those people who eat only white bread, and they think whole wheat bread is gross; it's only because they are not used to it!
How did you figure out how much salt you was in your diet in the first place? I'm very curious. I tracked all my food for a month on mypyramid.gov (it took a lot of work to do that), and I found that I'm severely lacking in potassium.
p.s. I am an invincible onion cutter when I wear my contacts. When I cut them with my glasses on instead, I cry just like everyone else.
I didn't realize celery had any salt in it. It makes sense now. I always thought cerlery salt was just celery seeds with salt added.