Health-Wise Wednesday

Topic: Sodium Intake

As I mentioned last week, my goal with watching what I eat has to do with getting healthy, not losing weight. Still, I am happy to report I've lost 1.8 lbs. this week. Not bad, for someone who's not really trying! There are several factors in this number, which I'll be going over in the next few weeks. Changes that appear slight, but are having a major impact.

I'm using the website My Fitness Pal to help me monitor what I'm putting into my body and in what quantities. I like the fact that I can adjust it to fit those areas I'm concentrating on. At first, I wasn't going to keep track of my sodium intake because I didn't think I needed to. Still, I decided to keep it and see what my numbers were like. Boy, was I ever surprised!

My mom taught us to cook the "old fashioned way". As a young girl she grew up on the island of Puerto Rico. Many people there, including my grandparents, grew alot of what was eaten in the home. They didn't have much money, and during WWII food was limited. Mom learned to make do with what was available, and to cook from scratch, since processed foods were either non-existant or too expensive. We learned to cook Mom's way, with fresh ingredients and very little salt. There was never a salt shaker on the table; whatever salt was used in the food was considered more than enough.

As the years have gone by, I admit I've turned to processed and packaged foods for convenience. Mom never worked outside the home after I was born, so cooking from scratch wasn't an issue; she had plenty of time to do it, in my opinion. I was a working mom, and therefore had much less time to spend in the kitchen. I felt justified in using packaged foods for some of our meals as long as there was always something fresh on the table alongside it. The items I prepared had little salt, and just like at Mom's house there was no salt shaker on the table, so I felt sure I was doing OK in that department.

I began plugging in my numbers on MyFitnessPal, and my daily goal totals came up. I was allowed 2500 mg of sodium per day. I laughed; I knew I wasn't even going to get close to that number. Imagine the look on my face when, at the end of the day, I had consumed 2,152 mg of sodium! Wow, that was much more than I'd expected. The next day was an even bigger shocker: 3,243 mg! What was going on here?! Suddenly the one thing I was unconcerned about took first place on my priority list. I started going over the foods I'd eaten and what the sodium content of each of them was.

I could see immediately what had brought me down on Thursday. It was my husband's birthday, and he'd been wanting to eat ham steaks with pineapple. They were on sale at Winn-Dixie, so I prepared a couple of Smithfield's Hardwood Smoked Center Slice Ham. I ate a small piece, 4 oz. worth, which totalled 190 calories. Not bad, but the sodium content was 1,180 mg! That alone was almost half my allowance for the entire day! I also had some green beans from a can. Should be healthy, right? How's this: 20 calories, 380 mg sodium. Not so healthy after all! It was a big wake-up call. Typically I don't look for the "no salt added" variety of canned foods because I know I add little to no salt when I'm cooking, so I thought the salt that was already in these wouldn't make much of a difference. I was very wrong, indeed.

As the days past I looked at my sodium intake more than anything else. I realized I need to change not only my eating habits, but my shopping habits as well. I have plenty of packaged foods in the pantry that need to get used up before I can replace them, but when I do it will be with items that are no salt or at the very least reduced salt. In the meantime I'm being much more cautious with my foods and and the amount of sodium they contain. I know I can't completely eliminate salt from my diet, and I don't want to. Salt is God's natural preservative, used for centuries to keep foods from spoiling. It's a better preservative than many of the chemicals used in foods today. But everything must be done in moderation, and it's clear to me my salt intake is way above moderate, which means my family's salt intake is also too high. My hubby has had issues with high blood pressure, so this is a concern for him as well. The message to me is clear: it's time to go back to that "old fashioned" method of cooking. It's time to do it Mom's way.