Pinching Salt

Recently, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. My doctor prescribed low-dose diuretics, exercise, and a low-sodium diet. Normally, I avoid prescription medicines, but the diuretics – and the exercise – were a must. Only two weeks after that initial appointment, results of implementing just these two recommendations were apparent in significantly reduced blood pressure.

The only remaining challenge – other than finding the early morning motivation to rise and exercise – was in figuring out how to decrease sodium intake. For years now, we've been altering the foods we eat to serve this and other healthful purposes: buying far fewer (if any) pre-packaged foods, mixes, sauces, stock, etc.; quitting soda consumption altogether; and very seldom buying junk foods (potato chips, fast foods, etc.) Most of what we eat is made "from scratch" and we often make recipe substitutions (or alterations) to reduce sodium, trans- and hydrolyzed-vegetable fats and sugar. There are few components of our diet that we haven't tweaked to make healthier. Even boiling water for pasta is much less saline than it once was.

So, where hadn't we adjusted sodium intake? After thoroughly examining our diet, I found the one area we hadn't touched: the salt shaker. And its use makes actual intake so much harder to gauge. Just how much salt is sprinkled to pre-season meat? Just how much is added on the dinner plate?

Hoping to consume less sodium, I considered switching to a commercial brand of seasoning salt. However, when I researched the available products, I became discouraged. Each brand contained some ingredient we avoid. One label seemed misleading, too. A popular brand contains sugar but, rather than list that carbohydrate on the nutritional label, it omits that category altogether.

Instead, I decided to make our own, and found a very tasty recipe online (About.com: Seasoned Salt recipe). The recipe suggests garlic and celery salts, but I used garlic powder and celery seeds. Even with these adjustments, the mixture is still 75% sodium. However, that's 25% less than regular table salt and, since we're now measuring the use of this substitute, we're consuming much less added sodium than ever before. Each "smidgen" (1/32 teaspoon) contains approximately 55 mg of sodium. General recommendations for daily sodium intake are between 2 and 3 grams (2000-3000 mg), so each smidgen is equivalent to 2.75% of the lower suggested amount. I went a step further and halved the amount of salt used in the recipe, effectively decreasing those percentages while still delivering a delicious flavour profile.

Flavour is, after all, the reason the salt shaker was being used. This mixture (even the 37.5% sodium blend) packs a huge flavour-punch! Wherever possible, it now replaces regular salt in daily cooking and makes sodium-reduced meals unusually delectable. Better yet, unlike commercial brands, this home-made seasoned salt contains: no MSG; no sugar; no flavour- or colour-enhancers; no fillers (like corn starch), no hydrolyzed vegetable protein, no lecithin (of which hubby is very sensitive), and, no anti-clumping chemicals (such as tricalcium sulphate.) Another benefit of preparing home-made seasonings isn't, perhaps, immediately apparent. The recent, massive recall of pre-packaged spice blends was stark illustration of other possible and uncontrollable health risks in consuming commercial blends. None of the whole and powdered spices we use in this concoction were involved in that recall.

Now that I've tried this mixture, I'm (almost) happy for the diagnosis that prompted its discovery. It tastes so good that hubby is now using it, too. A startling result as he once used the salt shaker with abandon. This seasoning, though intended only for my welfare, is also reducing hubby's sodium intake...no nagging required!

Recall

It's been two months since the initial recalls of foods containing hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) were issued in Canada and the United States. During that time I've received several updates (via subscription) from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Their list of contaminated products grows with each bulletin. HVP is used in prepared foods as a flavour enhancer, so most of the affected foods are ready-made products such as soups, dips, sauces, dressings, snacks, and seasoning blends. For many households, the recall resulted in the loss of hundreds of dollars of groceries. Our damages totalled $3.69 – a seldom used taco seasoning which wasn't listed for recall but, because it caused symptoms of salmonella poisoning, was tossed just to be safe.

Simply because we don't buy ready-made foods anymore, our pantry was spared a great purge. Soups, stews, sauces, and gravies are made from scratch using home-made stock. We blend our own spices and rarely eat processed meats. We've sworn off most snack foods and prefer the recipes we've gathered for making dips and dressings. With complete certainty, we feel our home-cooking lifestyle is the reason our larder was scarcely touched by one of the biggest food recalls in history.

It began small but we've expanded our home-cooking repertoire over the last ten years. While I've always baked cakes, cookies and some bread from scratch, we once used "convenience" foods frequently. Having (literally) bought in to advertising hype, we thought they were "time-savers." It was my sensitivity to high sodium content that first spurred a change in our food purchases. Next, hubby's growing intolerance to lecithin (a common stabilizer in most bread and broad range of other prepared foods) became cause for concern and a few more items were dropped from our shopping list. Then "middle-aged spread" demanded we examine the sources and types of fats we were consuming, and that analysis led to another change in buying and cooking habits. Each modification resulted in fewer processed and ready-made food purchases. Surprisingly, the difference in our overall cooking time amounted to just a few minutes more. However, the return on our investment turned out to be a huge boost in flavours.

One completely unexpected result of eliminating our consumption of processed foods has been our increasing repulsion of them. This distaste grew in direct proportion to the number of prepared foods struck from our diet. Products we once enjoyed, that smelled fine and tasted good, now smell and taste awful, their odours and flavours repelling rather than attracting. For that reason, eating out has become a challenge, too. Smells wafting from fast food diners make us grimace and it's getting harder and harder to find family-style restaurants that use real, fresh ingredients. Fine dining establishments are one of the few places using good quality ingredients but, since their pricing keeps them on our "treat" list, we rarely eat out. Instead, we're learning to prepare gourmet dishes ourselves. The plates aren't styled as beautifully, but we eat fabulously and for much less cost.

Without getting into the nasty detail of age, I'll just say I was raised in a time when home-cooking was the usual way meals and snacks were prepared. Sure, my mother kept a boxed cake mix on hand just in case unexpected guests dropped in but, mainly, she made meals from scratch. Most mothers did. What really concerns me is that manufactured food is now becoming the norm. Home-cooking is the exception, not the rule. According to cooking shows I watch, fresh produce is unidentifiable by many children today. This can't be good for society as a whole. It seems corporate interests have overpowered government controls and the result is diminishing regulation of the food industry. And, "industry" is an apt description for the chemical concoctions on offer.

Is this recall merely a harbinger of worse to come? Is home-cooking in danger of extinction? Is the slow-food revolution merely a flash in the pan? Sorry for that pun but I truly fear a time when meals may come in pill form. Yum.