I think your diet goals are what my doc wants to be my diet goals. I need to up my BP meds because I have not stuck to 30 min vigorous exercise a day and no fast food. Even just making my own lunch or dinner isn't the easy road to low salt. Bread is 100-250 mg of salt per slice. Most cheese slices are over 100mg. ( Swiss is the low one at 35mg ) A egg is 35mg as well asa cup of milk I think. Most sauces from a jar are 400mg for a 1/4 cup.
Get better, Dread and share more recipes.
Eggs is 60-70 and milk's 140/8oz(!). I been on 1500mg/day for about 18 months now, been literally
counting every mg and writing it down on a little notepad, too. Just to keep track, in case I forget. Along with 25mg HCTZ/day.
For my vertigo, inner ear pressure would spike, but actually didn't have any BP or heart probs.
I love my milk and eggs but took me a while to find a way not to have to burn 130mgs just in the eggs in a Sunday morning cheese, mushroom and scallion omelette with green taco sauce, for example.
Trying to satisfy the old appestat on 1500mg/day ain't easy but I sought out low-sodium staples like pasta sauce when I discovered pasta itself is zero sodium along with most veggies which I like anyway, and migrated over to a heavy pasta primavera component to the diet.
Cut my milk consumption in half, but still allocate at least 180mg for 2 8oz glasses daily. It starts to add up fast.
Previously I avoided carbs like bread and potatoes, but now think there's definite difference between the complex carbs like pasta and the simpler ones like corn and sugar.
BTW,
@dreadnut, there
are no-salt chips out there but take some finding. Whole Foods actually has a brand that's very well-priced, too, beats most brand names in a super in fact. You could fake your salsa with low-sodium pasta sauce as a base and add chile powder to taste, if you don't want to bite the bullet and mash up your own. (And I mean that with 100% sympathy
)
Fast food, even as minimal as it was, dropped off real quick since if I didn't know how much sodium was in it I wouldn't eat it, period.
And found out just how loaded 99% of the canned/processed food is. No salt added veggies are about the only thing that passes, and found a pasta sauce (Silver Palate) that's only 140mg per 1/2 cup, that's insanely low even compared to the big brands' "low sodium" offering.
And price-competitive too.
King's Hawaiian Burger buns are 120mg/bun, now that's a perfect bread for an Avo/Tomato/Red Onion sandwich for lunch, use unsalted butter, mayo's out. Maybe 130 total w/ avo (really low). Room left over for another 200mg of assorted sides.
'Nother thing I found out: If it's touted as "Low fat" or"Low carbs", that's secret industry code for "sodium bomb".
I cite the vaunted Beyond Meat as an example. Higher than beef. Most meats average 15/mg per in the unprocessed state, so 1/3 lb ground buffalo burger's about 85mg, one of my dinner-time go-to's. Some fish is way up there, though, like Alaskan Cod and Sockeye Salmon, over 200mg/4oz.
Tuna's good, do a lot of pan-seared tuna, and other salmons (wild-caught only). Will dress the top of salmon with garlic/ginger paste (I make) when pan-frying sometimes. Other times the old lemon-butter "pan gravy".
Potatoes very good (low sodium), was doing a lot of microwave baked when I discovered how low they were and
filling, and that microwave baking actually works pretty good. Unsalted butter, chopped scallions, sour cream (40mg/2 tbsp IIRC) and parsley topping, now I can allow myself some 50%
potassium chloride salt substitute, 290mg/
1/4teaspoon (!), (regular's 580!!) for a half potato.
Think potato carbs are "good" (complex) carbs, right? Anyway was a go-to for dinner for quite a while, I'd even make 2 sometimes and freeze 3 halves for when I didn't feel like working at cooking when I got home.
Figured out I could beat 2 eggs to dip flour-dredged Chinese eggplant slices in (nice and skinny, only about 1"-1.5" wide, sliced about 5/8 thin) before pan frying covered on low for about 5 minutes/side, perfect side dish or appetizers. 2 eggs over about 40 tidbits works out to about 3mg ea.
Perfect on top of a Ritz (30mg ea) w/ some
thin sliced swiss (25mg/slice), I do about 3 (one slice of cheese is enough for all) in the microwave for breakfast most days now, along with carrots and celery. And coffee.
But yep, takes about an hour over all start to finish with a 10" pan (I also drizzle the eggplant in lemon juice on a plate, let it soak in for a few, while I add a little fine-crushed thyme and curry powder to the dredging flour and beat the eggs). Cooking for yourself all the time can start to wear if ya gotta do all your own clean-up, too.
I did notice when I started that after about 2 weeks of religiously rationing my sodium, my sense of taste was better. All the simple stuff started tasting better. And salt sensitivity was correspondingly increased, so less starts working ok, too.
No salt salsa? No problem, you'll love it.
Did start using a lot of curry, and no salt chile powder, and a couple of my other faves: fennel seed, cumin, and thyme.
Even started trying Chinese 5 spice as a rub on different cuts of meat. Works pretty good.
Summer's comin' on. Gazpacho'd seem like a natural. Just leave out the salt and use unsalted tomatoes if using canned.
Heck I'm gettin' hungry, time to cook.
Hang in there Marc. Just count the damn milligrams.
PS, I remember the Mrs. is an RN (right?), so don't mean to "dis" her suggestion about a keto diet. Gotta respect the professional knowledge.
Kinda sweet she wants to keep ya hangin' around. Wassup wit dat?
