Salt

One thing is when you reduce your salt intake, after a while you get more used to using very little salt.

Also, you can try using other seasonings that don't have any negative effect on BP.

I make a habit to read food labels at the store and if the sodium content is too high I know not to get it.

In my mid-50's, so far I haven't limited anything. No health issues, I over-eat, over-drink, over-everything...Love that sea salt.

Obvious way to reduce salt intake is to eat less salty foods, especially chips/crisps. Recommended salt intake per day is just over 2000mg

amc rulz said:

In my mid-50's, so far I haven't limited anything. No health issues, I over-eat, over-drink, over-everything...Love that sea salt.

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Same here...Although it is a good idea to figure out what fuel your body seems to operate at its peak efficiency...Besides the stuff I find along the road, or out in the yard, Seems for me its Caffeine, Nicotine, and Alcohol...Oh, and a little bit of Oatmeal for a binder!

I remember as a kid we would sit out in the garage and eat Rock Salt! What a wonderful treat to let a big chunk of rock salt melt down in your mouth! Yummy!...The old Man always wondered where all his salt was going and had to buy a new bag even in the Summer!

I like to use herb seasoning blends which add a bit of savory flavor with less salt. I like Chef Prudhomme's Magic seasoning blends. I'm not as careful with the salt as I should be, but I'm more careful than before I had that mini-stroke.

-- Tom

Anybody out there drinking Stag beer needs to change brands. I found out that a 12 oz can of average beer has about 15 mg of sodium. The same 12 oz can of Stag has 1380 mg of sodium! True, look it up. I find that completely STAGgering. Sorry guys. But the insane sodium levels are real, WOW!

Mud-puppy said:

I remember as a kid we would sit out in the garage and eat Rock Salt! What a wonderful treat to let a big chunk of rock salt melt down in your mouth! Yummy!...The old Man always wondered where all his salt was going and had to buy a new bag even in the Summer!

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Well Mud, now we know why you are you! Have you started to "rust out" yet?

GLASSHOPPER1955 said:

Well Mud, now we know why you are you! Have you started to "rust out" yet?

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Now that you mention it, in the past few years, my underpants are exhibiting a strange orange hue discoloration? At first I figured it was from swallowing all the clad I find? You know, using my body system as a free penny tumbler, and not having to wear a finds pouch? Thats what I told my Wife anyway...Just 'Shout it Out' I commanded...But now I am not so sure! Maybe I should go see a Doctor? Like maybe my internal galvanic zinc coating is wearing thin like an old bucket?

Last time I went to a Doctor was in 2002, he tried his best to do a physical workup..Went to draw some blood, couldnt get any, said he needed a bigger needle, tried a few and finally went with a Turkey injection syringe thingy...Said, "Damn! Your blood has the consistency of Land O' Lakes Cottage Cheese!" I asked, "Whats my cholesterol level?" He said, "Small curd!" Whew! Dodged a bullet there!

Then he wanted to poke a finger up my coal chute for some strange reason?...I guess everybody needs a hobby, but I aint paying no damn guy for something I can easily do myself...I'm like "Hey, How much for this?" He actually seemed disappointed when I declined his offer! Can you believe that?

I will say, its been a wonderful Winter here!...I get plenty of exercise! Late at night I go out to shovel the drive like normal, and I have experienced a strange medical phenomenon...One minute I'm merrily shoveling away, and the next I wake up in a snow drift! Passed out stone cold! Curled up in a Fetal position!

Never experienced this before, its quite nice and peaceful actually...except for my underpants taking a frontal tye dye bladder splatter beating, I think I am alright...I'll lay off on swallowing the pennies to see if this anomaly clears itself up...maybe just nickels from now on? I'm not a doctor, maybe my aging plumbing system needs a higher dose of alcohol? Or switch from Folgers to Tasters Choice?

I'll try that first..a set of 10 new underpants at Sams Club will set me back more than a set of 48 AA batteries!....I did get to take home the Turkey baster syringe thingy..after all, I paid for it, and I'm like "Hey, I gotta do some caulk work around the chimney". The SOB tried to charge me even...

You can do it..

Pulltabby said:

Do many of you try to control salt intake. I have been trying but not easy after a life of processed foods.

I have been trying in earnest to avoid salt so far my high BP ....it is slowly going down in right direction. How do you folks try to avoid salt?

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PullTabby, one thing that would help a lot is replacing foods that are pre-made (soups, frozen entrees, lunch meats, snacks, etc.) with food made from scratch. Then you can put in the minimum salt you need to make the flavors come out. It's fairly certain that anything made for convenience will be high in salt. You can try figuring out the sodium per serving, times how many servings, and add everything up for the day. But I had more luck just saying, I eat nothing I don't make from scratch.

You can still use frozen veg, frozen meats, and of course fresh too. But avoid the ones that are all put together for you. They try to sell you on convenience, and use the "halo effect" (hey, there's another place that term is used!) to hook you -- "Low Carb! -- "Whole Grain!" -- "10 vitamins and minerals"... but often they're high in sodium, because it's a cheap way to improve flavor.

So instead of sausage or bacon at breakfast, roast a couple chicken breasts at 350 F for an hour, and use slices off them for days...

Some great advice from members above.. replace the salt with other flavors. Making soup, I'll squeeze a whole lime in, or grate fresh ginger... just about any vegetable in a pan with olive oil and a mashed garlic clove tastes fantastic.. look up DASH diet, it is a great help, too..

Don't worry so much about the tiny sources of salt - a sprinkle on your eggs, on corn on the cob. First cut out the big offenders, like lunch meat and frozen entrees. You're going to discover a lot of new flavors! Give your taste buds time and they'll adjust.

Thanks everyone..it has been a issue a long time...but time to choose better foods.

Oatmeal? What's that?

Mud-puppy said:

Now that you mention it, in the past few years, my underpants are exhibiting a strange orange hue discoloration?

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I think orange is pretty close to brown on the color spectrum

What Arthur Evans said is quite true.

I've been diagnosed with something called "Mineire's disease"(sp?), and my ENT put me on a sodium restricted diet. I swear, during the first week of it, I started reading nutrition labels, and thought the doc was trying to starve me to death. It's quite surprising how much sodium we eat, once you start reading the labels. But pay attention to the serving sizes listed too, as they will give you clues as to how much you can have without over-doing it.

(Note: Miniere's disease is an inner ear malfunction. We used to call it "Vertigo") It isn't any fun when your balance goes away to the point that the nausea causes you to empty your stomach, and you have no idea why.

I figured out that just the sandwich I was making for my first break at work was almost half of the 2000mg I was supposed to limit myself to.

I no longer use processed cold cuts, or sliced cheese, (dammit), but make my own stuff. (Egg salad, tuna salad, and chicken salad.)
I do still use entrees, but I get the Healthy Choice steamers brand, (lowest sodium levels of all that I could look at) and I don't use the sauce that's in the lower bowl. (I suspect that that's where all the salt is.)
Yes, I've drastically reduced my chip and dips intake, along with curbing my sweet tooth. I did discover that I can eat dark chocolate. (Luckily, I favor dark chocolate.) Yes, there's zero sodium in dark chocolate!
Frosted, shredded mini wheats for a breakfast cereal, if you're one to eat the stuff, is very low in sodium, too. (I enjoy chocolate milk over mine.)

My symptoms have all but gone away, so the surgery option is sitting on the curb for the moment. (I didn't care for the idea of somebody digging a hole in the side of my head, anyway.)

A coworker is also supposed to limit his sodium intake, and he says his doctor told him that "if you can grow it on a farm, it's ok for you".

Good luck to you, and keep the faith. You can actually sustain life without a lot of the foods that you normally used to eat.

(Personal observation: Mud-Puppy must have been an over-achiever in his creative writing class.)

Roger

When I was younger, ( that has been a while back ). I was a salt nut. Well, I guess it cought up with me. In my late 40s, I started having heart problems, and very high BP. Doc said , you need to stop salt now. That old fart scared my stained underwear off. From that time on I stopped salt and have not used it since. We do most all our cooking DO NOT USE SALT on anything. I do have some in the house for guest to use.
My wife and I, No salt.. I do not even miss it anymore.
You can do it.

KEN

Salt is an interesting seasoning. It is used primarily to awaken the palette. However, too much salt kills the palette. It will actually dull your sense of taste over time if you have too much of it in your diet. After a month of so with a low salt diet, you will be able to taste your food again and won't need to add addition "flavor" to it by way of salt.

Disclaimer... I'm not a doctor I've always thought that people use salt because it was on their table when they were kids growing up --I know my family was one of those. I've seen some folks use salt on their food without even tasting it! On another note, there are many countries that have the same average salt intake that Americans do--but yet they do not have any of the problems that many people have. BUT when you compare the amount of sugar-Americans average using about 66 pounds a year. So, I'm trying to eat less sugar and more fresh foods. Wait a minute, it's time for my nightly frozen chocolate yogurt... Seriously though--I think being active and eating fresh foods and reducing sugar intake is the key..

Pulltabby said:

Do many of you try to control salt intake. I have been trying but not easy after a life of processed foods.

I have been trying in earnest to avoid salt so far my high BP ....it is slowly going down in right direction. How do you folks try to avoid salt?

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Yes about 10 or 12 years ago I had to drastically curtail my salt intake. Think I got it well under 300 mg of known salt intake. Of course there is always salt in natural meats that you can only guess at. Really sucked for the first year but gradually your taste buds adapt. Lots of spices. Biggest problem is nothing is convenient. But after a while it became a lot easier to plan properly. I find more and more low or no sodium foods out there than there were 10 years ago. I probably keep it somewhere between 500 and 1000mg most days now.

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Pulltabby said:

Do many of you try to control salt intake. I have been trying but not easy after a life of processed foods.

I have been trying in earnest to avoid salt so far my high BP ....it is slowly going down in right direction. How do you folks try to avoid salt?

Click to expand...

Tabby Consider using Sea Salt as an Alternative.. It doesn't affect your blood pressure and you can use as much as you want.. it is the processed Salt that is the Silent Killer. you can find it anywhere these days.

SoOregonMd said:

Tabby Consider using Sea Salt as an Alternative.. It doesn't affect your blood pressure and you can use as much as you want.. it is the processed Salt that is the Silent Killer. you can find it anywhere these days.

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No offense, I was really hoping that was the case, so I did a search just to be sure and found this, don't feel bad, it seems to be a fairly common misconception from what I read.

Common High Blood Pressure Myths

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HighBloodPressure/GettheFactsAboutHighBloodPressure/Common-High-Blood-Pressure-Myths_UCM_430836_Article.jsp#.Wo8xIExFzIU

one of the myths listed at the above link:

Myth: I use kosher or sea salt when I cook instead of regular table salt. They are low-sodium alternatives.

Chemically, kosher salt and sea salt are the same as table salt — 40 percent sodium— and count the same toward total sodium consumption. Table salt is a combination of the two minerals sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl).