SHAKE THE HABIT
Readers share their ample advice on low-salt cooking and eating
Salt shakers disappearing off tables. Encouragement that you can learn to eat again once you give your palate time to adjust. Memories of just how repulsive low-sodium foods were when they
first hit grocery stores.
These were among the dozens of responses we received a few weeks ago after a reader wrote in asking for advice on cutting down salt consump - tion.
“Just as you can get used to very hot and spicy foods, you can get used to food that is salted enough to bring out the
flavors but not so salt y that what you are tasting is salt,” wrote in a reader named Jill.
Getting used to eating less-salty foods is one thing; knowing how to cook food that is just salt y enough is another challenge.
In the 1970s, Barbara Johnston’s young daughter was diagnosed with kidney disease, and she had to eliminate most of the sodium from her diet. She recounts a dialysis machine the size of a twin bed in her house and recipes sent home from the hospital that were just awful. “I asked the staff if they’d ever tried these recipes, and they said they hadn’t, so I made some of the food for them and made them try it,” she says. Johnston made her point
and paired up with the staff dietitian to create a book of recipes she developed to suit her daughter’s needs, called “Halt! No Salt.”
They sold about 1,000 cop - ies of the booklet, which is now out of print , and her daughter, after receiving a kidney donated by her mother, went on to become a doctor.
Johnston still eats less salt than most of us, using it only sparingly.
“If you don’t put salt on tomatoes, they are pretty grim,” she says.
Slow the whoa
Before we get too far down the low-salt path, a word of caution: Eating a low-salt diet isn’t for everyone.
Lauren Jahnke is a health policy researcher and consultant whose husband was diagnosed with high blood pressure a few years ago. They took great effort to eliminate excess salt in their diets, but that had no discernible effect on his health.
She started researching the subject, and it turns out that added sugars might be worse for cardiovascular disease than salt. And salt, unlike sugar, is actually something our bodies need to survive.
Salt used to enhance the flavor of freshly cooked vegetables is vastly different than consuming the amount of salt on fried french fries or potato chips, she points out.
Moderation, as usual, seems to be the key.
One reader, Glenn, “a good old boy raised with a salt shaker alongside his watermelon,” says that you can wean yourself off in increments, and the hardest step will be taking the shaker off the table. “Having to leave the table for salt is very powerful in making yourself aware of sodium intake.”
When he does add salt to his food, he pours a little in his palm and then pinches it with his fingers so he can have a better idea of how much he’s using.
“White cheese is your friend. Yellow not so much. Say hello to queso blanco and saltless margaritas.”
When he’s craving french fries, he’ll order them from a fast food restaurant but request them without salt. He then adds a little salt himself. “They take an extra 3 to 4 minutes to make but are always the freshest.”
“While I thought I couldn’t eat watermelon or corn on the cob without salt, I use a mix of paprika, chili powder, garlic powder and some other spices,” wrote reader Mike. “But I have to have salt on my tortilla chips when I go out to eat. ... I’m diligent 355 days of the year!
More than a few readers mentioned that, when following a recipe, they automatically cut the designated amount of salt in half. This doesn’t always work in baking, where salt can be an important part of the chemical reaction.
During her adventures in low-salt cooking, Carolyn in Georgetown started comparing recipes from older cookbooks to newer editions and found that older cookbooks almost always call for more salt and sugar than needed. She won’t use more than ½ tsp. of salt in a recipe — usually closer to ¼ tsp.
Carola laments at the salt used in rotisserie chickens sold at grocery stores. “They are squishy, so you know they’ve been brined,” she says. Many cuts of poultry are brined in saline solutions that can account for as much as 8 percent of their weight.
Carlos and his wife are dealing with high blood pressure and have branched out to using textured vegetable protein in place of meat in their chili. He seasons the chili with Dash’s saltfree mix and uses canned tomatoes without salt. “We don’t add more than what we should. When we make guacamole, there’s nothing like salt, but I don’t go shake shake shake.”
He steams potatoes in the microwave by chopping them into cubes, coating with a little oil and pepper and covering with a microwave-proof plate. Even without salt in the potatoes, they take on the flavor of the oil and pepper.
Letting labels guide you at the store
Soups, frozen foods and cold cuts are some of the biggest culprits in a grocery store, but breads can contain more than you think. A reader named Bill pointed out that an original Bays English muffin has 530 milligrams of sodium, while a Thomas’ cinnamon raisin muffin only has 170.
He was among several label-readers who have noticed that some regular products have less sodium than the “low-salt” variety of another brand, which is the case with Randall’s house-brand organic tomato sauce versus the Hunts No Salt Added sauce.
Joy Casnovsky, program director of the Sustainable Food Center’s the Happy Kitchen/La Cocina Alegre, says that adding up milligrams over the course of a day can be difficult. So when looking at labels, the rule of thumb to remember is that 5 percent sodium is low and 20 percent is high.
“I was astonished to find out not only how much salt was in most canned goods, but how much sugar was added, even to foods like Central Market’s chicken stock. Sugar! In chicken stock!” wrote a reader named Lin. She keeps a bottle of tap water and LaCroix, a no-sodium sparkling water, in the fridge for anytime she’s craving a sip of something sweet, because the temperature tricks the palate into thinking something is sweeter than it is.
“Gag” was used more than a few times to describe the salt substitutes — often made with potassium chloride — that were once the only option. Some readers like the “salt lite” products, but others warned to watch out for potassium chloride in those low-salt products because it can cause a problem if you are already taking prescription potassium supplements.
Meniere’s disease and iodine deficiency
Megan was one of several readers dealing with Meniere’s disease, in which excess salt intake causes water retention in the ear and, as a result, vertigo. By keeping her salt intake to less than 1,500 milligrams per day, she can reduce the effects of disease, but it wasn’t easy getting to that number. The Food and Drug Administration says that we shouldn’t consume more than 2,300 milligrams of salt per day, but studies have shown that the average American eats more than 3,000.
In addition to meal planning, cooking ahead and reading labels, Megan says that learning how to use spices such as curry powder, cumin, saltfree onion powder and garlic powder helped her reduce how much salt she used while preparing meals.
“Buy small quantities of quality spices from your local store — and don’t be afraid to play around with them,” she wrote.
If you do start a lowsalt diet, keep in mind that iodine deficiency can cause severe thyroid problems, but you don’t have to get iodine from iodized salt. Though the levels vary greatly, dairy products, eggs and saltwater fish are all considered good sources of iodine. You can take iodine supplements, but too much iodine can also cause problems, so monitor your intake closely and talk with your medical professional before making any drastic changes.
Rose, whose boyfriend has Meniere’s disease, sent in a slew of tips, including her spice mixture for seasoning meat and fish: garlic and onion powders, black pepper, marjoram and tarragon. She substitutes salt-free matzo for saltine crackers and for bread when making breadcrumbs, and they eat corn tortillas instead of flour.
Nutritional yeast, which has very little sodium, is good for those times when you’re craving a sprinkle of something salty on food.
She recommended two cookbooks: “The No-Salt, Lowest Sodium Cookbook” by Donald A. Gazzaniga and “Sodium Girl’s Limitless Low-Sodium Cookbook” by Jessica Goldman Foung, who is one of the leading low-sodium bloggers with her site, sodiumgirl.com.
Rose also plugged Whole Foods’ 365 brand beans: “Believe me, we looked everywhere and bought other brands at H-E-B and Sprouts, but these are the best.”
Making the transition
Ricki McMillian, a retired registered dietitian in Georgetown, says to expect it to take about a month for your palate to adjust to less salt.
“After that time period, you will walk into your familiar restaurant and think someone dropped a salt shaker in your plate,” she says. Adding a dash of hot or sour, through vinegar, lime or lemon juice or hot sauce, is a quick way to amp up flavor without much sodium.
Lynn, who was cooking for her mother, says: “I learned to keep the whole day of meals in sodium-perspective. Also, I may be adding canned tomatoes to a stew, but Ma was just having a small bowl of stew, not the whole dang pot. ... One of the pleasures of life is eating. I didn’t want to take that away.”
“If you don’t have buyin from the folks at the table, your efforts will be less than successful. In other words, you have to want your taste buds to acclimate,” another reader wrote. But there are a few foods, such as eggs, potatoes and avocados, that are just hard to eat without.
Pam uses vinegar — or jalapeño pickling juice, to be specific — instead of salt in guacamole and pimento cheese.
Elizabeth reminded that salt added during cooking tastes saltier than salt added after cooking. “A very little bit in veggies cooked in water will keep them from being too flat, but not really salty. The same is true for pasta and rice.”
A reader named Amy pointed out that the bigger flakes of sea or kosher salt are easier to see than the fine grains of table salt, so you can more easily see how much you’ve salted. “We’re so used to so much salt in our food,” she says. “I loved things like potato chips and corn chips. If that’s the kind of thing you’re used it, it’s hard to give up.”
Joyce in Buda said that she and her husband found an unexpected joy in low-salt eating: “We both learned that food has a taste of its own,” she says. “It has a completely different taste when you don’t add salt.” When they eat at restaurants, the food tastes “briny.”
Kate makes her own chips from El Milagro’s salt-free corn tortillas and likes the salt-free spices from Penzey’s Spices, which has a retail location at 4400 N. Lamar Blvd. One of her staples is baked chicken mixed with Penzey’s Chili 3000 blend and ground chipotle powder. She bakes the chicken without any oil or seasoning, lets it cool and then chops or shreds the meat. Then, toss with the spices. Then you can freeze the chicken in small portions or use it to make enchiladas or chicken salad with a mixture of mayonnaise, which can have high levels of sodium, and plain Greek yogurt, which usually does not have as much sodium.
Bottled salad dressings almost always contain shocking levels of sodium, so make your own with olive oil and vinegar.
Rinsing canned beans will eliminate much of the sodium, but not all — and there are so many more varieties of beans available now than there used to be, including lentils.
“To quote Spock: ‘There are always alternatives,’” she said.