Low salt diet the old style way

Goldiegirl

This week I found out that I now need to follow a low salt diet.


I'm wondering if anyone can direct me to any websites which have low salt recipes, but where the ingredients won't cost a fortune.


In future my chief driver for food purchase will be the low salt element, not low cost, but I want to keep food expenditure at a reasonable level!


Any suggestions would be gratefully received

eamon

Assuming that you mean reducing your sodium intake and that you are able to cook from scratch then don't add salt. If the recipe needs salt for it to work then try the low sodium brands. Of course if you rely on ready made meals then you have a more serious problem to deal with in that they tend to be loaded with salt unless stated.
Type "low sodium diet" into your browser. It brings up loads of sites that will help. If you have beem used to a lot of salt then your short term issue will be taste. You will need to retrain your taste buds, this will take time. FWIW you don't need to boil spuds, other root veg, leafy veg, rice, pasta in salted water it is not necessary. Scientifically speaking salted water boils at a higher temperature and hence food cooks faster but a few minutes saved is insignifcant.
Lastly keep your salt cellar in the cupboard.

kaya

Learn to cook , don't buy processed or pre prepared meals , simple really

meritaten

my MIL was a demon with salt, I had to 'wean' my OH off it when we got married. cut down the amount of salt you cook with gradually. if you normally use a dessertspoon of salt to cook potatoes - try using a half dessertspoon until you get used to it - then cut down to half that again. Low salt does NOT mean NO salt. Be aware of how much salt is already in your food. read the nutrition info. and don't be bamboozled by labels which say 'lower salt' on some brands - compare them to other brands and you may find that they are not worth the extra pennies - the difference is negligible.
Don't put salt on the table - it just encourages you to add salt to already seasoned food. and pepper can often fool your tastebuds into thinking the food is seasoned enough.

SailorSam

If i were cutting down on salt i'd start by thinking what else is there to bring out and enhance the flavour. So i'd get half-a-dozen little jars of herbs & spices, even better if you can grow some of your own on the window cill. Then experiment, maybe mix them with oils & flavoured vinegars .

trailingspouse

The easiest way is simply not to use it.

I never use salt when I'm cooking, and never put it on the table. The only time I would use it would be on chips (and we don't have them very often).

It takes a while to get used to the taste, but it's worth persevering - the food actually tastes like food, and not like salt. I notice very quickly if I eat something salty (bacon butties or Chinese takeaway are the main culprits) - I get a raging thirst.

Horace

I don't use salt at home - I never cook with it and I have even had cake recipes that ask for a pinch of salt, that just gets omitted. I only ever put salt on chips and I don't have them very often, heck I will even buy crisps that have a little blue sachet of salt in them so I don't have to add salt if I don't want.

It is very easy to stop adding salt to things. As others have said avoid processed ready meals as they are laden with salt, cut down on the amount of bread you eat too because that can also contain a lot of salt.

pigpen

I never use it on anything either but I am a crisp demon. I cannot abide salty food.

I avoid processed rubbish.. it is cheaper to make a good meal for my lot than get ready meal type stuff for them. Takeaways will often leave salt out of their dishes if you ask.

Gravy granules are available in a lowsalt option which is about the only thing I do buy with specifies low salt everything else is fresh and unsalted.

Goldiegirl

kaya wrote: »

Learn to cook , don't buy processed or pre prepared meals , simple really

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:


OMG, if only it was that simple


But thanks for the good laugh, I needed one after the week I've had!


PS, I can cook

Goldiegirl

Perhaps I should have been clearer - it is indeed a low sodium diet that I need to follow, due to a chronic illness that I've been diagnosed with.


According to the research I've done, a low sodium diet is between 1.5g - 2.4 g of sodium per day, or 3.75g to 6g of salt


As the recommended salt intake for a healthy adult is 6g, I want to make my maximum salt intake around 4g, hopefully slightly less


If it was as simple as not adding salt to vegetables or not using salt in cooking, it would be really easy, as I haven't done these things in years.


It's more involved than that. I could think I was doing the right thing by not adding salt to my recipe - but if the main ingredients were cheese and bacon, it'd put me over my limit straight away, as both cheese and bacon tend to be loaded with salt.


Feeling virtuous about your home made soup? If you've used a standard stock cube, it'll be riddled with salt.


Salt is lurking everywhere. Check the nutritional content of your flour, it's probably got salt in it.


Fortunately my bread making flour don't have any salt in it, but unless some salt is added to the mix it's pretty tasteless, plus the there's the salt in the butter of course.


I'm getting unsalted butter, low sodium stock cubes and low sodium salts, so I will be able to adapt my current recipes.


But what I'm looking for are recipes which don't rely on salt for flavouring, but use herbs instead.


I thought somebody may have some suggestions good sites where I could find suitable recipes.


But never mind, I'm sure I'll be able to find them myself


Thanks for your input anyway

[Deleted User]

Goldiegirl wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:


OMG, if only it was that simple


But thanks for the good laugh, I needed one after the week I've had!


PS, I can cook

There's always one, isn't there!

If you want my advice get yourself a spreadsheet, then you'll find out where the salt in your diet is really coming from, instead of listening to all the prejudice and propaganda. Once you have some idea of where the main sources of salt are, you can make objective decisions about which are the easiest and cheapest opportunities for reducing it.

My salt intake is only two thirds that of the average person (6g/day as against 9), and although I never put salt in or on my food, I don't go out of my way to avoid processed food either. The important point to bear in mind when assessing the level of salt, or any other nutrient for that matter, is that there are two ways of getting a lot of it. One is to eat a small quantity of something that is high in salt, but another is to eat a large quantity of something that is low salt. It's the latter one that everyone ignores, and that is what a spreadsheet will show you.

As an example of what I mean, when I reduced my fat intake I found that switching to skimmed milk and low fat marge gave me twice the improvement that I would have got by leaving out processed food altogether, and for no extra cost. I found much the same thing happened when I needed to control my vitamin k intake after being put on Warfarin, the foodstuffs that everyone thinks are significant are not the ones that are actually significant.