Re: I Need Some Help, Please.

Elly,

I think you're going to have quite a job! I've seen several requests here relating to low-sodium foods, such as Linda (below - I think on July 15) and this got me interested. My father, several years ago, had open heart surgery with a valve replacement and basically he totally changed his diet. He has cereal with fruit and skim milk every morning, but he has concentrated on a low-fat diet - the only concession that he's made with regard to sodium is that he doesn't add it to his prepared foods.

So I've looked in a cookbook put out by the American Heart Association, and it defines a very low-sodium diet as 35 milligrams or less per serving. A low-sodium diet is defined as 140 milligrams or less per serving. AHA points out that salt is half sodium and many food additives contain sodium; that you need to look at food products to see if they contain items such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), sodium bicarbonate (leavening agent) (bye-bye baking!), sodium benzoate (preservative), sodium propionate (mold inhibitor), and sodium citrate (acidity controller, as well as sodium nitrite (meat curing agent).

Let me look through the AHA cookbook and some others I might have access to and I'll post a selection of recipes for you. I can see by skimming through this one AHA cookbook that 35 mg or less per serving is hard to come by! In the meantime, if you see this message before I post recipes (I'll probably do this during the day tomorrow, Tuesday), let me know if you have any other thoughts.

Don't worry, though - we'll get you fixed up one way or another!

Janet