Tag: salt

Bread and salt — here’s how to break that troubling link

Bread has largely been out of my diet since I began efforts to reduce my daily intake of sodium. Most breads, whether packaged or made fresh at local bakeries, are loaded with salt. I’ve worked hard to find a salt-free whole wheat bread and other varieties like a brown rice bread.

My rice bread find from Minneapolis. A nice low-salt alternative to high-sodium white breads.
My rice bread find from Minneapolis. A nice low-salt alternative to high-sodium white breads.

So I was intrigued to see a Bon Appetit e-mail with the subject line We Asked a Nutritionist: Which Bagged Bread Is Healthiest? Clicking through to the story, I found that headlined How to Find the Healthiest Bagged Bread at the Supermarket.

It’s an informative piece, separating out bread myth from reality and rating various types of bread. I’d hoped it would look at brands of bread too, but no luck on that front. It did take on two of the three food demons — salt and sugar.

“Aim for bread with less than 150 mg of sodium per slice of bread,” Carrie Motschwiller, a registered dietitian and wellness manager in New York City, says in the piece. I’d go further and try to cut out all salt in bread or simply skip the bread. Continue reading “Bread and salt — here’s how to break that troubling link” →

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Try the new Senor Pan Cafe in Chicago

It’s not often these days that I go to a restaurant the week it opens, but that was the happy case when my wife and I discovered Senor Pan’s Cafe on North Elston Avenue in Chicago recently.

A touch fo Cuba on the wall at Senor Pan.
A touch fo Cuba on the wall at Senor Pan.

Several Senor Pan’s exist in the city, this is the newest and from what the owner told us the night we ate there, the most family-friendly and casual. It’s Cuban cuisine, which amazingly given my love of food, I had never tried before. Continue reading “Try the new Senor Pan Cafe in Chicago” →

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The FDA’s new sodium guidelines have no teeth

Reports were everywhere today saying the Food and Drug Administration was recommending major cuts in the amount of sodium in packaged and restaurant foods. FDA calls for sharp reduction in salt added to foods, was the Reuters headline. New FDA guidelines crack down on salt was on TheVerge.com.

Salt can lead to stomach cancer, one more reason to get it out of your diet.
Mountains of salt will remain in processed ad restaurant foods for years to come.

First of all, the guidelines are voluntary, not mandatory, so they don’t crack down on or call for anything, they merely suggest guidelines, which is exactly what the food industry, which has been fighting mandatory limits on sodium, wanted. Continue reading “The FDA’s new sodium guidelines have no teeth” →

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Denny’s Fit Fare menu — loaded with salt

Many national restaurant chains these days are trying to adjust menus to offer what they call healthier or leaner meals. It’s a tall order to full when their menu planners remain addicted to salt! I ran into this with Applebee’s last year and just came face-to-face with it again recently when I went to a local Denny’s for breakfast.

Denny’s has what it has dubbed its Fit Fare menu. Items are labeled as “lite” and their protein amounts are highlighted as well. But when you dig into the nutrition info on Denny’s website, you see the sad salt stories.

My Denny's omelet..get the salt out Denny's!!!
My Denny’s omelet..get the salt out Denny’s!!!

Take the Fit Fare veggie omelet made with egg whites as an example. I planned to get this, but then saw it contains 820 mgs of sodium, basically half my daily limit! Where is all the salt? I discussed it with a very helpful waitress. We agreed the Swiss cheese used and the English muffin that could be a side likely accounted for most of it. Continue reading “Denny’s Fit Fare menu — loaded with salt” →

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A different option for low-salt, canned tomatoes

I’m a big fan of making my own tomato sauce (we called it gravy in my Italian-American family) to have with whole wheat pasta. Almost any prepared sauce from a store, be it jarred or canned, will be loaded with salt.

Something new to me, extra heavy tomatoes.
Something new to me, extra heavy tomatoes.

Look for the low-salt canned tomatoes when making your own, though, usually any San Marzano tomato will be lower in salt than no-name varieties, as I’ve written before. That said, I was surprised to find a new variation on canned tomatoes at our local Valli Produce.

As you can see, the can calls them “Extra Heavy Crushed Tomatoes.” I thought that was just marketing hype until I opened them. They were really thick, more like a tomato paste than crushed tomatoes. Continue reading “A different option for low-salt, canned tomatoes” →

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Eating at Asian restaurants with their high-salt options — here’s some alternatives

Chinese food, more correctly old-fashioned Chinese-American restaurant offerings like fried rice, spare ribs, egg rolls and lobster-filled fried wontons, is perhaps the cuisine I miss the most since switching to a low-salt, low-fat, low-sugar diet after my 2012 angioplasty.

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

I went back to it on a birthday in 2014, with unpleasant results. And I’ve found some ways to make Asian dishes at home with a salt-free teriyaki marinade.

So I was interested to read a post on former Biggest Loser trainer Jillian Michaels’ site headlined “Learn Healthy Options at Asian Restaurants.” I generally think there are none, but she started out with one that I can actually agree with — sashimi instead of sushi at a Japanese place.  Continue reading “Eating at Asian restaurants with their high-salt options — here’s some alternatives” →

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Fast food breakfast choices — the salt flows like water

WebMD recently did a series of posts about fast food choices which I wrote about recently. The news was mostly bad, especially when it came to salt content of even what WebMD considered the best alternatives in several categories.

A McDonald's breakfast platter my mother once loved.
A McDonald’s breakfast platter my mother once loved.

The medical site is at it again, sending me this look at fast food breakfast choices. Again the news is bad even for the choices WebMD says are you best bet, or at least better bets than the calorie and salt monsters profiled first. Continue reading “Fast food breakfast choices — the salt flows like water” →

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A quinoa burger I would like? The jury’s still out on this one

Giant, juicy hamburgers are one of the foods I miss the most since switching to my low-salt, low-fat, low-sugar diet after my 2012 angioplasty. I have substituted turkey burgers and burgers I make from 96% lean ground beef. But there’s nothing like a half-pound beef burger, in my opinion.

The best quinoa burger ever? Try making it and let me know.
The best quinoa burger ever? Try making it and let me know.

So I was a bit skeptical about this recipe I saw in Bon Appetit that was headlined Make a Quinoa Burger You Actually Want when it landed in my e-mail inbox one day. Continue reading “A quinoa burger I would like? The jury’s still out on this one” →

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A flavorful take on cod, but is it low-sodium?

Cod is a fairly bland fish, probably most familiar to you as the fish in the typical fish and chips dish in which you taste the breading more than the fish itself. As you can tell, I’m not a big cod fan, but I came cross this recipe recently that gave a nice flavor boost to the white fish.

My panko-crusted cod.
My panko-crusted cod.

The recipe calls for coating the cod with a mixture of panko breadcrumbs, artichoke hearts, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, basil and pepper. It also calls for adding salt but I did not. Fish does not need salt, period, in my opinion.

You mix all those ingredients and coat the cod fillets with it, then bake in a 400-degree oven for about half an hour.

The salt challenge in this is the artichoke hearts. Most canned ones have 4oo or more mgs per serving. with two-three servings in a can. I found one imported brand that had 240 mgs times three servings, or 720 mgs in the can. I used about a third of the can in the recipe, so 240 mgs of sodium spread over the four cod fillets, of which I ate two.  Continue reading “A flavorful take on cod, but is it low-sodium?” →

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WebMD offers a fast food quiz you should try

WebMD recently sent me an e-newsletter that focused on eating out and trying to find the least unhealthy options at a variety of fast food outlets. I blogged about one story in it looking at fast food alternatives. You can read my post by clicking here.

The Quizno's meatball sub, a salt bomb if ever there was one.
The Quizno’s meatball sub, a salt bomb if ever there was one.

This post provides a link to a fast food quiz in that same newsletter. Take it by clicking here. 

The quiz will likely surprise you, it certainly surprised me. I study fast food options intensely, so thought I knew all about that realm. This quiz is a good reminder that there are hidden calories and hidden fat everywhere, often in items where you least expect it.  Continue reading “WebMD offers a fast food quiz you should try” →

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