STOP LIVING IN A SALT & PEPPER WORLD
I have always loved my salt! I would put it on everything from potatoes, eggs, to melons! I was taught to add salt to water to make it boil faster and conserve energy. I would add salt to spaghetti water to help it boil faster and to add flavor, vegetables needed to not only be cooked in salt but always salt was added after cooking. And, of course butter is added to everything and I HAD to use salted butter. Other ways I would add salt would be with garlic salt, prepackaged seasoning shakers, different flavor enhancing gravies or sauce mixes. Oh, and I would also buy “healthy” processed foods, an example would be organic soups that were pre-made for convenience. Never was there a thought of giving salt content a consideration because after all it was “healthy and organic”, how could it not be healthy? I found many of the brands I would buy would have a whopping 600 mg of salt/sodium per serving and usually there were at least 2 servings in the container that I was eating as one. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,300 mg daily though 1,500 mg is what they consider to be ideal. As you can see my soup serving would take a large portion of my daily intake, if not all of it. To put this in perspective 1,500 mg is about 0.75 teaspoons of salt.
As a culture salt wasn’t always a part of our diets. It was primarily introduced into our diets when it was discovered that salt would preserve foods when refrigeration either wasn’t available or scarce. Growing up on a farm this was a regular practice so of course I thought I was immune to the affects.
In all honesty none of this really mattered, I just love the taste of salt, until, I found myself with the diagnoses of high blood pressure. I knew from my nursing background that salt can contribute to high blood pressure though only a small percentage of patients appeared to be salt sensitive. The obvious way it contributes is by having the body retain fluid, your heart pumps harder to remove excess fluid thus raising the blood pressure. In my case I didn’t have those obvious signs, no swelling or shortness of breath that often are signs of too much fluid in the body, so I chose to assume it didn’t affect me. Unfortunately for me I was prescribed two different blood pressure medicines, lowest dosage possible since all the medications appeared to put me too low, even a half dosage, but if I didn’t take them my BP sometimes got to stroke level.
It was at this time when I really started paying attention to when my blood pressure would be up and what I had eaten that day. I realized that my BP appeared to elevate every time I ate popcorn or added salt to a meal. I had long ago stopped adding salt to my cooking, but it was a frequent visitor on the food that graced my plate. All this being said, I had to start paying attention and change how I cooked and ate my food. Research has proven that a single meal with salt can visibly raise the blood pressure within 3 hours.
During my research for myself I found that salt also damages our arteries, thus altering or diminishing our blood flow. This damage happens very quickly, often in less than an hour. This happens whether you have high blood pressure or not.
I had long embraced herbs and cooking with them but always had added the classical salt and pepper to almost everything I cooked. I was already a Master Herbalist with my focus being on the medicinal properties of herbs but now I wanted to know how they could enhance my now boring food. I started looking at what veggies were enhanced by which herbs, which herbs were good for which meats. I started looking at all the seasoning combinations I had bought at various specialty stores and realized most of them had salt as the first or second ingredient. My next step was to look at labels of anything that came in a box, container or can. I was amazed at how much salt played in even the “healthy” processed foods.
There are so many ways salt (sodium) can sneak into the diet. The more I researched the more I found the hidden ways. One way that I was totally unaware of was in poultry. It is reported by multiple sources that chicken is often injected with salt water to enhance the flavor, improve the moisture thus making it better chicken. Now to be clear not all companies do this, but those that do can add up to 400 mg sodium to a chicken breast. A chicken breast that is not altered can have 50-75mg of natural sodium. If no salt is added a chicken breast can be a healthy choice if you are eating meat.
There are lobbyist for the salt industry as there are for most industries. As I was researching I realized that many of the soda companies also own snack companies. Those snacks have high salt which add to thirst and the circle of salt continues along with the profits of less than healthy foods. I have always found it interesting when you go into a restaurant and there are salted peanuts, popcorn or some other salty snack on the table for “free” as you are waiting. Of course, then the thirst kicks in and we buy beverages to quench the thirst. I looked at a can of a popular brand of soda recently and it had over 500 mg. of sodium. Ahh…yes…. marketing and hidden salts can easily catch up to you in so many ways.
I started really looking at everything we consumed and how we consumed it. I could alter our salt content greatly by having healthy snacks (cheese consumption is now at a minimum) available and learning how to cook our meals differently. Overall, we don’t eat out a lot but when we do we try to stay away from things that have sauces and eat salads where we can control what goes on them. We still use butter, but it is now used much more sparingly, and herbs are my mainstay. 
Learning all of this, my journey became intense to find & use herbs to flavor our foods. I have found garlic, onion powder, basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, rosemary, curry, coriander and many more to be my best friends in the kitchen. I have used them in many combinations experimenting with them as I go. I read all labels and have thrown away all my previous seasoning that were high in salt content.
Often, I grow my own herbs as some taste differently if used fresh. I even grow them over winter in flower pots. Overall dried herbs have lost much of their flavor if they have lost their color.
An interesting result has been over about 2 weeks in time we have found that we don’t miss salt. Our taste buds have adjusted and when we eat out many times the food is too salty.
I believe all of us can benefit from decreasing our salt intake even if we don’t have high blood pressure. The benefits of healthy arteries are far reaching in our senior years. If you have small children now is the time to cook with healthier options so they have healthy arteries and less “taste demand” for salt.
May each meal be healthy and delicious!
Susan
08/11/18
Posted to www.soulsoothers.org
Very informative. Thank you.