Low Sodium Cooking Adventures!

Originally Posted February 17, 2010

So, after being gently but firmly admonished by my nephrologist, as only a nice old man can do, I have decided that this time I might actually try to eat a low sodium diet for reals. (My early phase of "reduced- sodium" was promising not to eat rock salt out of the box anymore.)

My awesome husband, who will from here be referred to as Sexy Lawyer Man, bought me two cookbooks for my birthday. (The American Heart Association's Low Salt Cookbook, and a book called 500 Low Sodium Recipes.) I highly recommend them both, especially the Heart Association one. I knew I was going to be ok when I opened to the first recipe: Potato Skin Nachos complete with cheese, olives (drained and rinsed), sour cream and homemade salsa. Those were cooked by SLM while I was still in my useless, post-biopsy bed rest phase, and they were REALLY tasty.

After doing the (real) low-salt thing for a week, I can say that this is probably the most effective diet I have ever tried. If you really look at diet food, it's all low cal, low fat, low carb... and then 864 mg of sodium per serving. You are never going to lose water weight eating like that. I have lost my semi-recently acquired "puffy" look (thanks, Mom, for that description) from all the water retention from stupid kidney stuff. It's only a few pounds, but that makes a difference when it's all water. Also, if you don't eat salty snacks like Doritos and stuff, it will reduce your calories, too. So I say to you, oh healthy type people: don't wait until your doctor tells you to quit salt. Do it now. It's fun. I promise.

Here, I'll show you. 

Dinner #1:

Mediterranean Fish Fillets:

Take a fish. Drip lemon juice all over it. Then cover it in tomato slices, pepper, green bell pepper pieces, plain bread crumbs, olive oil, and dried basil. Bake 25 minutes at 350. So freakin' easy.

**Notes: My only complaint was that the fish tasted a little like ground. I am a recovering non-fish eater, so I understand that this may have been more my fish prejudice than the tilapia. Still, it was pretty tasty. 176 mg sodium, if you add capers (packed in balsamic vinegar, not salt water) which they do not sell in Waco. Those of you in closer proximity to a Whole Foods might fare better. It was fine without the capers.

Side dishes were Steamed Broccoli with homemade dressing (dijon mustard, lemon juice, sugar, pepper, olive oil) and Wild Rice. This was the boxed wild rice and long grain rice mix. A normal 1/3 cup serving has 1000mg sodium (literally) so when I made this, I fished the solidified chunk of seasonings out of the packet before cooking. This is not a perfect method, so I bet the end result was still pretty salty (tasted good...so yeah...) and next time I will buy the kind of rice that has a separate seasoning packet (Uncle Ben's) and discard almost all of it. Or buy the wild rice separately... but that was actually more expensive.