A Chinese food recipe that actually works as low-sodium?

Chinese food is a cuisine I love but have given up since my 2012 angioplasty because of the high sodium content of almost anything containing soy sauce or other salt-heavy Chinese sauces. I did binge on Chinese food for a birthday a few years back, but that’s been it.

A low-salt broccoli beef recipe from the American Heart Association.

So I was excited to see this recipe for broccoli beef stir fry from the American Heart Association. It uses only a tiny amount fo low-sodium sauce sauce, one tablespoon, for a pound of beef and two pounds of broccoli. I might add some Mrs. Dash salt-free teriyaki marinade to intensify the Chinese flavors a bit. Continue reading “A Chinese food recipe that actually works as low-sodium?” →

September 28, 2015 2

Birthday pig-out, part II: Oh what a night

I wrote last week about how after two years of starving myself for health’s sake, I decided this birthday would be a pig-out day for me, a day when I would leave my angioplasty mandated restricted diet behind and eat the way I did when I was young.

So the day started with my favorite potato chips and a giant chocolate chip cookie that I ate more than a third of. And my day went on to a dinner of what had once been a favorite ethnic food choice for me — Chinese food.

My Chinese birthday dinner, egg rolls, crab rangoon, Mongolian beef. Not shown was the fried rice.

Chinese food is high in sodium and can be high in fat as well depending on the dish. I have not eaten it for almost two years and miss it a great deal since I once had it weekly. So I was determined to drive to a neighboring suburb, to what had been my favorite Chinese take-out place, to get all my old favorites — pork fried rice, Mongolian beef, egg rolls and crap Rangoon. Continue reading “Birthday pig-out, part II: Oh what a night” →

June 9, 2014 0

Salt-free teriyaki sauce — a taste test of three varieties

Asian food is notoriously high in sodium, thanks mainly to the presence of soy sauce and teriyaki sauce in many dishes, both Japanese and Chinese.

I dearly miss my Friday night Chinese food treat but haven’t had Asian food since my angioplasty in August 2012 on nutritionists’ orders. I have been searching for a way to make some of my own, however.

Salt in teriyaki sauce ranges from 600 mgs for regular, to 320 for reduced sodium, to none in salt-free teriyaki sauce options.

Reduced sodium teriyaki and soy sauce is sold in mainstream supermarkets but it still has too much sodium for someone on a low-salt diet such as me. Kikkoman’s less sodium teriyaki, for example, has 320 mgs of sodium per tablespoon compared to 600 mgs for regular teriyaki. My limit per day is 1,200-1,500 mgs of sodium, so two tablespoons of reduced-sodium teriyaki sauce would be half my daily requirement, too much to sacrifice in one dish of a multi-dish meal. Continue reading “Salt-free teriyaki sauce — a taste test of three varieties” →

September 5, 2013 19