MY DOCTOR HAS TOLD ME TO LOWER MY SALT INTAKE. WHAT DO I AVOID?
Request a visit to a dietitian. Rid your cupboards and refrigerator of all canned and processed foods. Give away your can opener. Avoid salty snack foods such as chips, olives, popcorn, nuts, cookies. By preparing your own meals you will have eliminated much of the excess sodium. My own sodium was limited to 2000 mg per day. When my diet was computer analyzed, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was using only 1000 mg of sodium per day.

Table salt contains aluminum that makes it free flowing. Excess aluminum has been implicated in Alzheimer's disease. Higher levels of aluminum increases calcium deposited into the urine, making individuals more prone to calcium stone formation. Processed foods are unusually high in this aluminum laden salt. In such a fast paced society people often lack the time or the energy to cook for themselves. This is where juicing can help.

When I am famished, I will first juice something, then prepare the meal. This takes care of my immediate hunger and I find I am more able to prepare food that is lower in sodium and healthier. Juice made from fresh raw ingredients is one of the fastest fast foods available. Raw juices when taken first have the additional advantage of releasing their ready enzymes to aid in the absorption of the meal. I have just read recently that as we age, we tend to produce less hormones and less enzymes and less hydrochloric acid to digest foods. I do not ever experience heartburn or reflux and I juice, juice, juice.

FOODS HIGH IN SODIUM

Send a email if you have a question about a food listed or cannot find a food. Limit added salt from a shaker or grinder to 1/8 teaspoon per day. I use Himalayan Pink Crystal salt. This salt contains many of the essential micro minerals useful for the body to buffer the acid processes that are taking place on a cellular level. The Himalayan Pink crystal salt is known as halite. I take one of these crystals, place in a beautiful blue glass bottle with filtered artesian water from the volcanoes of Hawaii. Then I take one drop of this solution in a full glass of Hawaiian springs water or mineral water or spring water each morning. I find it gives an extra bit of energy without elevating blood pressure.This might also be useful for those on dialysis requiring salt adjustment while coming off the machine. Here is how to make solé from the book Water and Salt, the Essence of Life. Included is a study with solé that lowered cholesterol. A German friend I know very well, has helped me from time to time to upgrade this website. One year he drank one glass of solé and increased his total water consumption to 3 liters a day. After one year, his cholesterol tumbled down to normal levels. His doctors were happily amazed and asked what he had done to make this tremendous change.

I have noticed if I juice frequently throughout the day, I do not crave any extra salt from the shaker. In addition to freshly cut aromatic herbs I use vegetable coulis to flavor meals along with onion, garlic, cilantro, aromatic herbs, and a tiny bit of fresh raw chopped parsley. I use cucumber but avoid pickles. In place of butter, I will spread avocado on toast, or some made-in-a-blender—almond butter that contains no additional salt.

If you do experience gastric upset or reflux, try stopping raw garlic and raw ginger. If you use cinnamon to flavor foods, try the whole cinnamon sticks, then remove the stick once the meal is served. Some have noted that raw carrots and carrot juice cause gastric upset. Email with any questions you might have.

WHY IS TABLE SALT DETRIMENTAL?

You may be thinking ah, minerals, I know minerals, how about table salt? Table salt is sodium chloride. Sodium found its soul mate in chloride. These two molecules are so incredibly attracted to one another that nothing can pull them apart. The body cannot separate these tightly bonded minerals. Heat cannot do it. Evaporation does not do it. Adding moisture to it will not do it. The result is any table salt which you eat goes through your body untouched. Table salt is eliminated in the urine. Because the blood is loaded with this inseparable couple called sodium chloride they take with them water as they exit. They pull water along with them, drying the cells. This is due to the higher concentration of sodium outside the cell. One becomes dehydrated. Dehydration prevents the kidneys from being adequately bathed and nourished with blood. Dehydration causes the blood pressure to rise, the circulating blood volume to fall. Thus the blood goes zipping by the kidneys barely touching them as the race is to run faster and faster to compete with the increasing blood pressure. Dehydration is known to be very detrimental to an individual with polycystic kidney disease.

When the body has an abundant source of minerals that are easily broken apart into their components, the body gladly uses these minerals to aid in the neutralization of acid processes within cells. When this source is not available to the body, it will rob to obtain needed minerals. It will pull calcium from bones, or sodium from the gallbladder. This creates illness within the body. The theft of calcium causes bone loss and demineralization. Ingesting sugars and excess proteins causes the body to rob sodium from the gallbladder to neutralize this acidic process. The innate intelligence of the body continues to do its job to survive and it will obtain needed minerals firstly from its own mineral reserves. Once these are depleted it will turn to our organs, and after the organs, the body draws needed minerals from the bones. Lastly the body will make ammonia with a pH of 9.2 to neutralize the produced cellular acid. This last attempt by the body to neutralize acids causes a rise in blood urea nitrogen, the BUN. BUN and serum creatinine are two blood tests which doctors rely on to give them an indication of kidney health. If one eats almost exclusively protein foods and tested the urine with litmus paper and it tests 8.0 alkaline, it probably means your body is manufacturing ammonia. Cranberry juice might do just the trick to change the ammonia to ammonium. This transition can be required while one is slowly fine tuning the diet.

Adjustments to diet need to be made slowly and deliberately, whereas the decision to attempt these changes needs to be decided instantly. I had found for myself the most solid commitment came as I was threatened with the possibility of a transplanted organ in my immediate future. This was the trigger which turned things around for me.

last updated Wednesday, January 31, 2007 4:31 PM