Get the Salt Out Read Online Free PDF

Your Kitchen
    M any salt-reducing tips are versatile. Once you learn them, you can use them when making anything from breakfast to party foods. They can be utilized repeatedly, anywhere and anytime, until they become habits and maybe even family traditions.
    The tips in this chapter are your beginning lessons, and they should become your mainstays. They are fundamental ways to break the salt habit—basic concepts that will teach you how to limit, substitute, or eliminate salt in the foods you put in your shopping cart, the foods you have in your kitchen, and the way you prepare food.
    Begin by remembering the concepts and using the tips that seem most simple and appealing to you. Once those tips become second nature, try using other suggestions that seem more unfamiliar to you.
    Making lifestyle changes is never easy, but it’s particularly difficult to change dietary habits that have been ingrained since childhood. The liberal use of salt is automatic for most Americans. Breaking this habit usually has to be a gradual process, and its best to proceed at your own pace.
    It also helps when you know exactly how and why youshould get the salt out of your diet. The tips in this chapter cover those important how’s and whys and serve as the foundation for all of the other tips in this book. Get to know this chapter well and keep reminding yourself that the efforts you make today will pay off in rewards to your health in the future.

TOP TEN TIPS

    1Avoid processed foods as much as possible. Products that come in boxes, packages, and cans are designed for a long shelf life and are the number-one source of salt in our diets. In addition, they frequently contain sodium additives and preservatives, sugar and hydrogenated fats, all of which are known to cause health problems. For all of these reasons, your top priority in getting the salt out should be to eliminate these refined, fake foods.
    2Think fresh and natural. Nature designed foods that are perfect for us—low in sodium but otherwise filled with nutrients. Fresh plant foods and unprocessed animal foods fit this description; all others don’t. Therefore, choosing foods low in sodium is relatively easy: when in doubt, opt for the more natural food choice.
    3Substitute unrefined sea salt or Real Salt for common table salt in your salt shaker. Remember: the
kind
of salt you use is just as important as the amount of salt you use. Common table salt is harmful; it doesn’t dissolve in the body and tends to build up. Unrefined sea salt and Real Salt, however, are “good” salts the body can easily use for the many roles sodium plays. See Resources in the back of the book for information on where you can purchase Real Salt.
    4Use only the amount of salt that is right for you. Sensitivity to salt, even to “good” kinds of salt, is an individual response. Some of us can tolerate moderate amounts easily, while others do much better with very little. Add the amount that is right for you. At home, have each family member salt his or her own food.
    5Eliminate, or at least reduce, the amount of salt used in cooking. Salt added during the cooking of foods accounts for a big chunk of the sodium we consume: 45 percent. It also is not tasted as well by our taste buds as salt that is added to foods after cooking. Therefore, feel free to use natural salt at the table (which accounts for only 5 percent of our sodium intake), but try to eliminate salt and salt-containing ingredients from your recipes.
    6Become a consumer-sawy food detective: seek out products that are low in sodium or have no salt added. An unsalted product used in place of a regularly salted ingredient often can reduce your sodium intake by hundreds, sometimes even a thousand milligrams, in one meal alone!
    7Make your meals come alive with savory salt-free seasonings like garlic, herbs, and spices. If you use these seasonings in your cooking, then eating can become such a flavorful experience that you’ll never even miss