Can you share please your tips and experience for cooking, food shopping and dining out while on a salt-free diet?
It looks like my doctor will prescribe a salt-free diet. Looking at the list of stuff that I will need to ban there seems nothing "interesting" left. Even dining out is going to be a challenge.
Start with baking your own bread. Check allrecipes.com or other sites for vegetable spreads you can make yourself?
Replacing salt with herbs will help you getting some idea of taste (as saltless really takes time to get used to).
My experience is that you can ask for your food to be made without salt (done that with an aunt who was on a salt free diet).
And good luck!
Won't a salt-free diet kill you?
The body needs 4g of salt per day and "salt free" is targeting 1-2g of salt per day. The problem is that today we get around 10-12g a day.
I presume that by "salt free" you mean low salt (typed before the previous post was posted ). I have been on such a diet for over 20 years.
It is a lot easier if, like me, you cook your food from scratch. Most prepared foods contain gobs of salt ... "reduced salt" soups (in the States at least) contain less salt than the standard product but still way too much.
The few brands of low salt bread I found here are absolutely tasteless, so I eat small amounts of real bread.
You will find the food tasteless for a few weeks but, believe me, you will get used to it and not miss it.
Best of luck both with your diet and with whatever condition led you to it!
Fresh herbs, chiles, peppers, lime, lemon, chives - lots of good flavor replacements.
Believe me, once you ditch the salt shaker and cook from scratch you soon discover a whole world of flavor. In fact soon you find that you not only do not miss salt but that you may even start to dislike it.
Good luck with your diet!
Use lots of MSG.
Heed the wise words of this man.
Found this low sodium salt as alternative. Mixed with herbs which gives a better taste to potassium chloride. Available in big pharmacies.
I think this will kill you.
reason: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056...1889#t=article
Ok, I'll bite, what advantages does a salt free diet bring?
Yes.
Nope.
Tom
Helps lower blood pressure.
Majority of studies show that reducing intake of sodium reduces cardiovascular risks: http://www.who.int/elena/titles/sodium_cvd_adults/en/
To be clear: it's not "salt-free" but rather low-sodium or low-salt intake. Salt is necessary for our body to function correctly. Ideally 3-4g salt per day instead of the 10-12g we are getting in average today. Helps lower blood pressure and avoid kidney failure/problems.
Fixed that for you.
Just, erm, buy fresh things, cook them yourself and don't add the salt?
It's really not too difficult to cut salt out of a diet that you prepare and cook yourself. Just cut back on the pre-prepared things that you buy.
Yes, but it tastes absolutely like crap, same with a fat free diet, fat is a taste vector, food without salt or fat is bland and tasteless, I'll dig the low salt and the low fat but to be totally without you may as well eat tofu.
Saying "a meal tastes like crap without salt" is a bit of an extreme exaggeration Slammer, you get used to the lack of it very quickly and meals still taste very good. Curries, bolognaise, roast dinners... all can taste great sans salt if you use good and flavourful ingredients. Your palette gets used to things, and it can get un-used to things equally quickly.
I have been salt free for over 20 years due to blood pressure issues. First of all it is quite difficult not to add salt but your taste buds soon change and it has not been an issue.
I make my own bread and soups and you can flavour food in so many ways. And soon you will not miss it at all I promise you!
My blood pressure is now low and I have no need to take any blood pressure medication and I persuaded the OH to follow me and his blood pressure has reduced dramatically.
Agree and this is what I've been doing. The next step is to do your own bread, don't buy canned leguminous (chickpeas, beans, etc...), avoid viennoiserie (danish pastry, croissant etc....).