Only three entries in and I already failed there for awhile! It's been one of those two weeks - me with a horrible case of being troll-social (talking to people? going anywhere? BAH) and Chris with a raging ear infection. Finally we broke down and went to the Walgreen's clinic to get some antibiotics for that and got a surprise bonus diagnosis - hypertension! When I took my blood pressure at the store while waiting for the prescriptions, I got a shock too - 151 systolic, which is the first number. Which is also classified as Stage 1 Hypertension. Granted that's probably not as accurate as the doctor's office, but accurate enough to worry me.
Now, the thing about both of us is... well, we try to eat healthy. Sometimes. But we both love food, and it definitely shows. Since a trip to the hospital due to a diverticulitis episode two years ago (which involved a week's stay for Chris) we've been a lot better about fiber, but that's about it. The truth is that neither one of us really know a lot about healthy eating. Sure, we know that making our own food is better than pizza and burgers, but the problem comes when we get down to what to actually eat? I come from a family that pretty much only really cooks when they HAVE to and has the disposable income to avoid it a lot of the time, and it was always viewed as a chore rather than an adventure - when I was in high school, I "had" to cook one meal a week. It was always spaghetti, always jarred sauce that I just added some frozen chopped onion and bell pepper to. Not exactly adventurous or healthy, if you've ever really looked at the back of those jars.
So thus begins our new adventure: trying to lower our sodium intake. Did you know that just one teaspoon of salt is your daily recommended value of sodium? (That's 2325 milligrams, for those counting.) And for anyone who's overweight or in the beginning stages of hypertension, and let's face it, that's a lot of us... that's too much sodium. Way too much. But sodium is in everything these days, in various forms. It's even in milk - I think the 1% that I get has 100 mg per 8 ozs. It doesn't seem like a lot but it starts adding up fast.
Now it's all about experimenting. The problem is that a lot of no-salt added things are, well, inedible. Maybe they'd work for you, I don't know, but for us, all of them tend to taste too sweet. Mind you I don't mind sweet, but I mean the sickly kind of sweet, like bread or fruit just on the other side of rotten. We're tried low-sodium bread, no-salt added veggies, lower sodium tomato paste, soup intended for sodium restricted diets, all with the same result. Sure, it's a great way to cut sodium - but only because we can't eat anything made with it. Blech! So now I'm going to start blogging something slightly different than what I'd originally intended: our efforts to slash our salt intake without making food completely unpalatable.
I've actually got pictures for some stuff I made last weekend, but I'll save those for tomorrow. Since I've already rambled extensively, here's a pretty easy one that I made last week: Taco Seasoning. I completely left out the salt and it tasted perfectly fine - just add 2 1/2 tbsp of the seasoning and 3/4 cup water to 1 lb of browned hamburger meat or cubed cooked chicken.
You'll have to check your chili powder to make sure that there's no sodium in it, but this mixture is great. We really couldn't tell much of a difference between this and the store-bought packet, and we saved about 300 mg of sodium per serving by not using that. Low-sodium tortillas are fairly hard to come by so I went for low carb ones instead, which packed a surprising 9g of fiber per tortilla. And at 180 mg of sodium per serving, they weren't a deal breaker. Keep in mind that SOME sodium is good for you - actually, too little is bad as well. A doctor can give you a more definite number as far as a minimum is concerned. One note of warning: if you don't have health insurance, like Chris, the Walgreen's Take Care Clinic is an option, but apparently they're phasing out treatment for high blood pressure. They'll tell you if it's too high, but they won't prescribe medication for it anymore. Fortunately they referred us to a great clinic just across the parking lot, but it still could be bothersome. Also, you can buy blood pressure monitors on Amazon for pretty cheap, so that's another option.
We've only been at this cutting sodium thing a week, and when I re-tested my blood pressure at the grocery store, my systolic was down to 142. Here's to hoping that was a good sign and not just a fluke!
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