Get the Salt Out (34 page)

Place all the ingredients into a bowl and blend well with a whisk.
Makes 1 1/2 cups.

215
If you’re used to salty dressings,
gradually wean yourself away from them by diluting them with water or lemon juice to lessen the saltiness.
Two Salt Shakers.

216
Apply the same concept to creamy dressings that are overly salty:
thin them out with plain nonfat yogurt.
Two Salt Shakers.

217
Beware of fat-free dressings,
which often have extra salt (and sometimes extra sugar) to compensate for the flavor
the fat used to provide. If you pile on the fat-free ranch dressing because it’s “fat free,” you should know that a two-tablespoon serving of Hidden Valley Original Ranch Dressing contains 260 milligrams of sodium, but the same amount of Hidden Valley Fat-Free Ranch contains 320 milligrams. That additional unhealthy sodium will add up every time you eat a salad. To avoid all that salt, try this recipe from
The American Heart Association Low-Salt Cookbook.
It will show you how to get much of the unnecessary fat out of ranch dressing without adding extra sodium.
Two Salt Shakers.

In ajar with a tight-fitting lid, combine all the ingredients. Shake well to blend. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, allowing the flavors to blend.
Makes P
/2
cups.

218
If you’re used to making a dressing from a mix,
did you know that salt is often a major ingredient in almost all of those handy mixes? It is, unless you’ve already discovered a brand like The Spice Hunter, which makes a complete line of mixes that are both salt-and sugar-free.
One Salt Shaker.

G
etting the salt out of meals can be done a number of different ways. Judging from my experience as a professional nutritionist, I would say that most people who are told to eat a low-sodium diet go about it in exactly the wrong manner. They pay little attention to whether different foods supply good or bad forms of sodium and often assume the lower the sodium, the better. As a result, they tend to emphasize nutrient-poor, low-sodium white bread and white pasta and to use convenience products like low-sodium bouillon cubes that have few recognizable food ingredients.

When you add the antifat propaganda that has swept across our land, many people who are trying to reduce their salt intake also give up nutritious foods like zinc-rich beef and seafood, and some avoid animal protein altogether. Their overzealous and unhealthy fat phobia also causes them to avoid magnesium-and potassium-rich nuts and seeds, and to avoid using even the tiniest amount of healthy oil in cooking. The result is a group of well-intentioned individuals who give up salt for health reasons but who develop across-the-board deficiencies of certain nutrients, which lead to far worse health problems than they had before.

The key to reducing dietary salt healthfully does not involve eating uninspiring, unbalanced meals or relying on unpalatable “fake” foods that are low in sodium but have virtually no other nutritional value. Quite to the contrary, the secret must involve keeping as many healthy nutrients in your diet at the same time you get the unhealthy sodium out. The only way to strike this ideal balance is to take a tip from nature. When you learn how to combine natural foods creatively and choose only healthful convenience products made from natural foods, you then will have discovered the secret of how to get salt out of meals the right way.

The tips in this chapter will teach you how to do that. They’ll show you that you can enjoy everything from Vegetarian Chili to Chinese stir-fries to Tandoori Chicken in less salty ways. A few of the tips also may cause you to rethink your attitudes about protein and fat, helping you to understand that receiving a balance of quality nutrients from entries and side dishes is equally as important for health as getting the salt out.