Although you probably don’t think of desserts like cookies and cakes as being sources of excess sodium, they are. When you consider that baking powder has 300 to 450 milligrams of sodium per teaspoon, that baking soda has 1,368 milligrams of sodium per teaspoon, and that salt contains 2,000 milligrams of sodium per teaspoon, its easy to see how the sodium content of baked goods can add up quickly. In addition, commercial baked goods are made with potassium-depleted refined white flour instead of whole grain flour, so they almost always contain more sodium than potassium. As I mentioned in the Preface, our bodies are designed to thrive on foods that are low in sodium and high in potassium. The tips in this chapter will show you how to create healthy desserts that are rich in potassium, low in sodium, and low in sugar.
Admittedly, many desserts are not high in sodium. (More often, they’re simply loaded with unhealthy sugar.) The following tips, however, should help you understand that even when you eat the sweetest of desserts, you still need to be aware of the sodium you consume.
NATURAL, LOW-SODIUM DESSERTS
377 Treat yourself to fresh fruit. Whether eaten plain as a snack or artfully presented with garnishes in crystal goblets, succulent fresh fruit is a dessert that’s special in its own right. It’s also rich in nutrients such as vitamin C, potassium, and carotenoids, which most of us are lacking, and it’s always low in sodium. For all of these reasons, fresh fruit is our best dessert, the kind we should eat as a treat most often.
BONUS TIP: It’s important to understand that fruit is a source of sugar, even though it’s a natural source. Too much sugar, no matter what its source, can cause weight gain and other health problems, so don’t go overboard: be sure to limit yourself to two or three portions of fruit each day. See my book Get the Sugar Out for further information on how to maintain a healthy intake of sugar.
378 Bake fruit and add flavorful, low-sodium ingredients to create an elegant dessert. The following recipe does exactly that. It is one of my all-time favorites. One Salt Shaker.
BAKED APPLE WITH WALNUTS, RAISINS, CINNAMON, AND NUTMEG*
4 cooking apples, such as Mcintosh or Granny Smith, cored and pared
1 tablespoon unsweetened apple juice
1 tablespoon chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon loose raisins
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Place the apples and apple juice in the baking dish. Fill the centers of the apples with a mixture of chopped walnuts, raisins, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cover and bake for 45 minutes. Serves 4.
379 Get into the habit of using sweet starchy vegetables in desserts. Vegetables such as sweet potatoes and winter squash are naturally sweet, high in fiber, and high in potassium, yet quite low in sodium. This means they are terrific ingredients to help you make low-sugar, low-sodium, extremely healthful desserts. Try baking acorn squash and adding a dab of butter, a few drops of real maple syrup, and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg. Or bake a sweet potato, scoop out the inside, and mash it together with one banana, then sprinkle with toasted chopped pecans. One Salt Shaker.
380 Learn to shop for healthful treats in natural food stores. Although commercial cookies and other baked goods usually are not exceptionally high in sodium, they do contain unhealthy refined salt (and other dietary no-no’s like partially hydrogenated oils, refined sugar, refined flour, and baking powder made with aluminum). Health food stores sell goodies that are better on all these fronts: the desserts that are usually sold are made with sea salt, higher quality fats, fruit sweeteners or other natural sugars, and nonaluminum baking powder. Here’s a good example: two Nature’s Warehouse Whole Wheat Fig Newtons (cookies you can find in health food stores) contain only 40 milligrams of sodium, and they’re made with figs, whole wheat flour, fruit juice concentrates, nonhydrogenated canola oil, baking soda, and sea salt. By comparison, two Nabisco Fig Newtons contain 120 milligrams of sodium, and they’re made with enriched (refined) flour, preserved figs, three types of refined sugar, refined salt, corn flour, whey, baking soda, and artificial flavors. Always look for desserts that contain sea salt instead of table salt and that have the most natural ingredients you can find. One to Two Salt Shakers.
381 Skip the instant chocolate pudding. Hidden in quick-fix pudding mixes is a hard-to-believe amount of salt: one serving of Jell-O Instant Chocolate Pudding Mix contains 410 milligrams of sodium, and a serving size of Snack Well’s Instant Double Fudge Pudding Mix contains 440 milligrams of sodium. (What is so much salt doing in sweet pudding anyway?) If you occasionally like to treat yourself to pudding—and you want to make it in a jiffy—try this simple, wholesome pudding my staff helped me devise for this book. Not only does this recipe not contain the salt found in instant pudding mixes, but it also avoids other harmful ingredients often found in mixes—artificial flavors, artificial colors, and preservatives. One Salt Shaker.
QUICK CHOCOLATE PUDDING
2 cups nonfat milk
¼ cup Sucanat (dehydrated cane juice crystals, available in health food stores)
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons arrowroot
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
4 tablespoons lightly toasted slivered almonds (optional)
Blend the milk, Sucanat, cocoa powder, and arrowroot in a blender. When the ingredients are well blended, pour the mixture into a medium saucepan. Heat on high, stirring constantly, to prevent the milk from scalding. When the mixture begins to thicken, turn the heat to medium and heat, still stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of a pudding. Mix in the vanilla extract, then pour into 4 pudding dishes and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Cover and refrigerate for several hours. If desired, top with the almonds before serving. Serves 4.
382 To help your body get the salt out, get the sugar out as much as possible. According to nutritional expert Melvyn R. Werbach, M.D., sugar inhibits the body’s ability to clear excess sodium and water. This results in water retention, weight gain, abdominal bloating, and swelling of the face and extremities. Even low-sodium desserts such as ice cream, which is rich in sugar, should be avoided.
BONUS TIP: If you need more incentive to get the sugar out of your diet, you should know that excessive sugar intake is linked to obesity, heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, and more than sixty other ailments. My book Get the Sugar Out explains in great detail sugars relationship to disease, and it also has lower-sugar recipes and 501 tips that will help you cut your sugar intake.
TIPS FOR LOW-SODIUM BAKING
383 Change the sodium-to-potassium ratio in baked goods to a ratio that is closer to what we receive in natural foods. Even if you use sodium-rich baking powder and baking soda, you still can improve the sodium-to-potassium ratio by increasing the potassium content of baked goods: use whole grain flour instead of commercial refined flour and add other potassium-rich natural foods such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Employing any of the following tips will also improve the important ratio of these minerals.
384 Use unrefined sea salt or Real Salt instead of common table salt in recipes, and try reducing the salt slightly. Usually a 25 percent (or even 50 percent) reduction in the salt indicated doesn’t affect the quality of baked goods.
385 When you double a sweet recipe, don’t increase the salt; its not necessary. Other ways to reduce the sodium content in baked goods include replacing any of the following ingredients with their lower-sodium alternatives:
386 Melted butter or margarine: canola oil or melted unsalted butter. One Salt Shaker.
387 Peanut butter, almond butter, or other nut butters: unsalted peanut butter, unsalted almond butter, or other unsalted nut butters. One Salt Shaker.
388 Buttermilk: nonfat yogurt combined with nonfat milk. To replace one cup of buttermilk in a recipe, use 3 A cup nonfat yogurt mixed together with X/A cup nonfat milk. This substitution provides 170 milligrams of sodium compared to 257 milligrams in o
ne cup of buttermilk. Two Salt Shakers.
389 A substitute for buttermilk even lower in sodium: soured milk. To sour milk, add one tablespoon of brown rice vinegar or lemon juice to one cup of nonfat milk and let stand until it curdles. One Salt Shaker.
390 Baking powder: Featherweight Baking Powder. This product, which is available in many supermarkets, not only helps you get the sodium out, but it also helps you avoid the aluminum common in many baking powders. One Salt Shaker.
391 Skip sodium-rich baking powder, baking soda, and salt altogether, and use the natural leavening power of egg whites in desserts. Angel food cake and macaroons, which both contain egg whites, are two good examples of desserts that simply don’t need traditional sodium-rich leavening agents. Macaroons are usually thought of as being made only from coconut, but they don’t have to be. In the following recipe, ground blanched almonds are used to make a deliciously different kind—nutrient-packed Almond Macaroons. One Salt Shaker.
ALMOND MACAROONS*
3 egg whites
1 tablespoon natural almond extract
3 tablespoons Sucanat (dehydrated cane juice crystals, available in health food stores)
1 cup ground blanched almonds
21 whole almonds
Blanch the almonds in hot water to cover, remove the skins, and grind to a fine meal. Mix together the egg whites, almond extract, and Sucanat and add to the almond meal. Mix until well blended, then chill the dough for 1 hour.
Drop heaping teaspoonfuls onto an oiled cookie sheet, press a whole almond into the top of each cookie, and bake at 350 degrees until light brown, about 5 minutes. The cookies will harden more as they cool. Makes approximately 20 cookies.
392 If you add raisins or other dried fruits to baked desserts, be sure to avoid those fruits preserved with sodium bisulfite, another form of unhealthy sodium in our diets. This preservative adds to our sodium load and is a common allergen that can cause health-threatening reactions in many people. Look in natural food stores for dried fruits that aren’t treated with sulfites.
BONUS TIP: Feel free to add chopped nuts to cookies and cakes. Nuts are sugar-free and virtually sodium-free, and they supply protein and high-quality fats that slow down the quick release of sugar from sweets into the bloodstream. They also are packed with minerals like potassium and magnesium, which most of our diets are lacking. For all of these reasons, I find nuts healthful, flavorful, and extremely satisfying ingredients to add to baked goods.
393 The main source of sodium in pies is the salt in the crust. (Fruit pies, for example, have extremely low-sodium fillings.) Fortunately, the salt in recipes for piecrust usually can be reduced and sometimes can be skipped altogether. In the following recipe from Secrets of Salt-Free Cooking, Jeanne Jones has created a piecrust recipe that uses cider vinegar in place of salt. If you’re extremely sensitive to salt—or if you have a recipe for pie filling that’s slightly salty (such as cheesecake filling)—use this Perfect Salt-Free Piecrust. One Salt Shaker.
PERFECT SALT-FREE PIECRUST
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
¼ cup oil
3 tablespoons ice water
¼ teaspoon cider vinegar
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Put the flour into a 9-inch pie pan. Measure the oil in a large measuring cup, add the ice water and vinegar, and mix well, using a fork. Slowly add the liquid to the flour in the pie pan, mixing it with the fork. Continue mixing until all the ingredients are well blended. Press into shape with your fingers, making sure the crust covers the entire inner surface of the pan evenly If the recipe calls for a prebaked crust, prick the bottom of the crust with a fork in several places and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Makes one 9-inch piecrust
394 Another way to get the salt out is to eliminate the crust altogether: make a fresh fruit crisp or fruit crumble instead. One Salt Shaker.
This recipe was adapted from a recipe for Baked Apple with Raisins, Cinnamon, and Nutmeg from my book Beyond Pritikin
This recipe was adapted by Melissa Diane Smith from a recipe for Lemony Almond Macaroon Drops that appeared in my book Get the Sugar Out.
Get the Salt Out When You Eat Out
Once you understand how and why you should get the salt out of your diet, it’s fairly simple to avoid refined salt and sodium additives in the foods you eat at home. It’s another matter, however, when you eat out.
When you dine in a restaurant, you no longer oversee every ingredient used in the preparation of your meal. That’s part of the fun of eating out, but it’s also part of the problem. In exchange for the pleasure of having other people prepare food for you, you put yourself at the mercy of the chef. Even when cooks don’t add salt themselves, they often use commercially prepared foods that contain unwanted salt as well as sodium-rich flavor enhancers, preservatives, and additives. Excess sodium commonly sneaks into restaurant food this way.
If you are not careful, hidden sodium in restaurant food can sabotage the efforts you’ve made to cut the salt elsewhere in your diet (especially if you eat out often). Prevent this from happening by becoming as knowledgeable and selective about the meals you order in restaurants as you are about the products you buy in grocery stores. You already have a solid foundation for getting the salt out when you eat out: all the salt-cutting skills you’ve learned in the other chapters can easily be applied to dining in restaurants. The tips in this chapter build on that foundation, teaching you the all-important skills of being a salt-smart diner and traveler.
GETTING WHAT YOU WANT
395 Patronize restaurants where food is cooked to order, and request that your meal be simply prepared—baked, broiled, or grilled—without salt or seasoning salts. One Salt Shaker.
396 Also ask that your entrée be served without sauces or gravies—or ask for them on the side and use them sparingly. One to Two Salt Shakers.
397 To prevent bland food from arriving at your table, tell the server that you’d prefer herbs to be used liberally in your order. One Salt Shaker.
398 Or ask if chopped chives or other fresh herbs can be served on the side with your meal. If you see on the menu that fresh herbs are listed as seasonings or garnishes in other entrees, this request almost always can be granted. One Salt Shaker.
399 Ask for lemon wedges with your entrée. Lemon juice always gives salt-free food more kick. One Salt Shaker.
400 Pick and choose from the menu. If a particular item appears somewhere on the menu, you should be able to get it with whatever entrée you want. If you see a romaine lettuce salad topped with teriyaki chicken strips on the menu and you also see a plain grilled chicken breast sandwich, there’s no reason you should not be able to combine the lower-sodium components of both entrees and get a romaine lettuce salad topped with plain grilled chicken strips. One Salt Shaker.
BONUS TIP: Be bold yet polite when asking your server for special favors. If you have a hard time doing this, remember that you’re the customer and its in the restaurants best interests to have a satisfied one. After your meal, reward your server accordingly: if he or she worked especially hard to accommodate your wishes, express your thanks to that person and be especially generous with your tip.
401 Consider carrying a small salt-free herb shaker to the restaurant with you. (It’s easy to carry a shaker to the restaurant in a purse or coat pocket.) If you’re used to using salt-free blends at home, you’ll probably enjoy low-salt foods in restaurants much more if you can season them to taste with your favorite herbal blend. One Salt Shaker.
402 Carry “good” salt with you. As I’ve mentioned throughout this book, the kind of salt you use is extremely important to your health. If you are careful to ask that your meals in restaurants be prepared without salt (which is always the refined variety), then adding a few shakes of natural salt is hardly ever a problem and, many times, can even enhance your health. (As I mentioned in the Preface, for many of my clients, especially those who have low-sodium blood levels, they actually need
a little bit of natural salt added to unprocessed foods to achieve their best health.) Some herbal salts such as Bioforce’s Herbamare and Trocomare (mentioned in tip 59) are available in 3.2-ounce shaker bottles that can be carried like salt-free herb shakers in a purse or coat pocket. The most helpful traveling salt shaker I know of, however, is an ultra-small, refillable, plastic shaker available from Real Salt. (See tip 55.) With dimensions of 1½ inches by 2 inches by ½ inch, this salt shaker can be carried anywhere because it can easily fit into any pocket. I myself carry one with me wherever I go, and I recommend this handy shaker full of healthy salt to all of my clients. See the Resources section for information on how you can order this convenient product. Two Salt Shakers.
403 Seek out natural food restaurants. By now, you probably know the rule: the more natural the foods are that you eat, the better. When you eat at natural food restaurants, you automatically know that the selections offered are made with fresh, natural ingredients and that the use of prepackaged or processed foods is minimal. Consequently, hidden salt in the food isn’t as much of a problem. (Don’t let down your guard though: even when you eat in natural food restaurants, you still need to be savvy about salt.)
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