Image by niznoz via Flickr

We recently posted on salt, and in the past week there has been more media attention to this essential yet potentially harmful nutrient. The Economist call salt the new trans-fat. A New York Times article points to an alarming rise in kidney stones in children, possibly caused by over consumption of salty snacks and foods.

Here then, are a few ways in which you can reduce your sodium/salt intake:

1. Reduce fast food consumption. Just 2 slices of pizza or a single patty cheeseburger carry over a 1000mg of sodium, half a day’s recommended intake.

2. Challenge the Chef. At a fine dining establishment, most chefs will omit salt when requested. You can always add salt form the shaker on the table.

3. Read the Label. Sodium content appears on food labels at the supermarket. Look for products with less than 300mg per serving. Watch out for especially salty foods including anchovies, pickles, soy sauce, canned soup, luncheon meats, salad dressings, hot dogs, tomato juice, and ketchup. Some brands, like Kikkoman Soy Sauce have lower sodium options (605mg vs 920mg per tablespoon), but even those can be quite high.

4. Salternatives. When cooking, try to use different spices and herbs to flavor the dish instead of salt. Fresh choices include Italian parsley, ginger, garlic, basil, chives, and lemon grass. Try dried spices such as chili, paprika, cumin, turmeric.

5. Choose frozen, not canned. Salt and Freezers are both “preservers”, keeping foods from spoiling. Choose frozen over canned veggies because they don’t need the salt to protect the food. They’ll usually have maintained a higher level of the original vitamins. If you do use canned vegetables, try rinsing them to get some of the salt out.

6. Delay Salting. When cooking, add salt just before serving, and in a smaller amount than called for in the recipe. Each diner can then add salt to taste.

7. Cut down on salty junk foods. A no brainer. Potato chips are brutal – a serving of 12 chips (yeah, right) has 340mg of sodium, about 15% of the recommended daily intake.

8. Watch the sauce. Sauces and gravies add tons of sodium to your meal. Trim down the amount you add to your salad, sushi, and sub.

9. Salt detox. Train your taste buds to enjoy less salty foods. Gradually reduce the amount of salt you sprinkle over foods. After several weeks, your salt comfort zone will be lower. By the way, you can do the same with sugar in your coffee.

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photo credit: dno1967

The presidential election is here. Once in 4 years, we get a chance to decide the country’s future. This election, timed with a severe financial crisis and international restlessness, has led many to declare that the US is ailing and needs to be healed.

But what about each of us? People are ailing too. Six out of ten Americans need to lose weight, 24 million are diabetic, millions are suffering from hypertension and heart disease.

These elections are an opportunity for reflection on personal change as well. Personal change that comes from personal choices.

We choose our president once in four years; we choose our food once in four hours.

No individual vote shapes the future of the country, and no individual food choice will change the shape of someone’s body and health.

But just as the aggregate of all ballots set America’s future, the sum of a person’s food choices over the course of years sets her medical future.

So starting tomorrow, elect to eat better.

Vote for fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean dairy and meat.

Good luck America, and good luck each and every one of us.

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1. Before going to the supermarket, make a shopping list. And then stick to it. Market research shows that 1 in 2 products in our shopping carts are an impulse buy. Many times these are not items we really need. Supermarkets are designed to lure us to into buying more more more in the 24 minutes we spend on average roaming the aisles. The enticements during our seven minute wait at the checkout counter are also unnecessary most times, yet expensive at all times.

2. Stop buying soft drinks! Hard to imagine, but you really are paying a lot of money for carbonated water mixed with food coloring and heaps of high fructose corn syrup. On average every man woman and child consumes over 50 GALLONS of soft drinks annually. A family of 4 switching to tap water can save over $500 a year! Go ahead, drink a glass of water and watch your piggy bank swell with pride. I this is too drastic, at least switch to 100% fruit juice.

3. Drastically cut down on sugary, salty, and fatty snacks. Limit yourself to 2 or 3 items per grocery trip. If your children protest, practice a revenue share model with them – for every dollar in grocery bills saved, they keep 50 cents.

4. Switch from brand name products to store brands. Whether frozen foods, dairy, staples, or canned goods, a store brand is usually just as tasty and nutritious, but costs 10-25% less.

5. Use coupons. Wisely. Don’t buy a year’s worth of canned prunes to save a dollar when the last time you had prunes was at your grandma’s birthday in 1993.

6. Shop less. Plan your shopping trips for once a week at most. Those short trips to the grocer for one item usually end up with many more items in your shopping bag.

7. Eat more homemade food, even out of the home. Prepare sandwiches for lunch; or bring leftovers in a Tupperware dish to heat in the office microwave.

8. Don’t throw away food. Bananas gotten too mushy? Toss into the blender, add milk honey, and ice cubes to get a wonderful smoothie. Stale bread? Check out some bread pudding recipes.

9. Go meatless a day or two a week. To some this may sound like an abomination, but statistically, vegetarians are healthier and live longer. For protein on your off days, try different types of beans, tofu, lentils, quinoa, and grains, with plenty of vegetables and fruits. Add nuts and seeds to salads, sauces and desserts.

10. Learn to cook. Cooking is NOT heating a canned soup or nuking a TV Dinner in the microwave. Really cook. you’ll be surprised how easy it is to prepare healthier and cheaper a tomato based pasta sauce when you do it yourself. Have the kids join and help you. There’s no shortage of recipe websites today, some include video tutorials.

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Eat a Bit Better.

We’d all like to improve our eating habits, but it seems like a very difficult challenge these days. Juggling a career, family, and friends in this fast paced world leaves us with little time to prepare and eat the kind of  meals that some may still remember enjoying as children at grandma’s house. In fact, if my great-grandmother would walk into a supermarket today, it would be very difficult for her to identify many of the processed foods on the shelves. Please check Michael Pollan’s Unhappy Meals for an interesting essay on how the food we eat has changed in the past 100 years, including suggestions for personal improvement (eat food, not too much, mostly plants).

At Fooducate, our goal is to help you navigate the complexities of the modern supermarket and help you choose the best food for your family and health. We realize that at the supermarket you have very little time to analyze food labels and extract the information that is pertinent to you. That’s exactly why we came up with Fooducate – to save you time and help you make better food choices.

If you have a few minutes and are interested in learning more, this blog is for you. Here we’ll keep you up with the latest in food and nutrition trends, and more importantly their practical implications for you at the supermarket.

hopefully we’ll all Eat a Bit Better…