If you haven’t read the previous post on this, Andrew Blain from Yarra Valley Snack Foods kindly took the time to comment and explained the change in sodium levels:

Hi There.
I stumbled across your website today and read your comments re the salt level of our chips.
The background to this change is that through our ongoing testing of our finished product we were getting variable test results back re sodium levels…between 90-150mg per 100g. The reality for us is that when we target such low levels of salt, there can be some variability due to product flows etc.
Once we recieved these results we need to set the nutritional panel at the higher end to ensure we are not misleading people. At the higher level we can no longer claim low salt, and thus the change to lightly salted.
I can assure you there has been no change to any of the product specs we are producing….the setting on the salt machine is identical as it has been since product launch. In time the full range will change to this for the same reasons.
As a small Australian owned business we really appreciate the support from people like yourself who care enough about our products to write reviews on them.
Thanks again

Andrew Blain
Owner
Yarra Valley Snack Foods

It’s really awesome when companies treat you like a human being, so kudos to them! I’ll definitely continue to buy their crisps – you can pry the packet of black pepper crisps from my cold, dead hands.

My partner bought our favourite Thomas Chipman crisps the other day. We tucked into them, looked at each other and said “This seems a bit saltier than usual…”. We looked a bit closer and while the packaging remains the same, the Thomas Chipman crisps now carries the label “Lightly Salted” rather than “Low Salt Original”. The sodium content has also increased significantly – from 95 mg/100 g to 160 mg/100 g.

I’m not sure if this means that Thomas Chipman has discontinued its Low Salt range or has just expanded its range to include saltier crisps. I’m really hoping it’s not the former. Sure, the sodium count is still better than your bog standard crisps, but it’s nowhere near as tasty as the low salt range. Thankfully their cracked pepper and rosemary & thyme flavours are still low in sodium (about the same sodium count as their low salt original range).

I’ll be writing to them soon to see what’s going on – will keep you updated!

Unsalted Nut is now back up with minimal downtime! My new project, the Lesbian Ham Network is now live – I not only survived the awful process of installing Wordpress MU, but I’ve also launched a new food photos blog as part of LHN: Food Fuck Yeah. BRB sleeping in

Just as a heads up – Unsalted Nut may be down over the weekend as I’m tweaking the site a bit. I’m a little bit apprehensive about the entire thing because I might lose the blog if I mess up, but I’ll be making heaps of backup (what are the chances that all of them will fail? …actually, don’t answer that). I’ll see you again very soon and hopefully my new project will be up by then!

I try and take a pretty balanced approach to the low sodium diet. I still eat food with medium sodium content that I know are good for me (e.g. yoghurt and soy milk) and occasionally indulge in high-sodium items, but I eat low sodium food all other times. Below is a pretty typical day for me:

Breakfast
Oatmeal – Uncle Toby’s Quick Oats, 40 g serve + half a cup Vitasoy High Fibre soy milk + half a tablespoon honey
Sodium total: 58 mg

Mid-morning snack
Be Natural Honey Nut Trail Bar
Mandarin orange
Sodium total: 70 mg

Lunch
3 x vegetarian rice paper rolls
Sodium total: 104 mg

Afternoon snack
1 x medium banana
Sodium total: 1 mg

Dinner
Sweet and sour tofu with 3/4 cup cooked Basmati rice
Sodium total: 324 mg

Overall sodium intake: 558 mg

It’s very important to track your sodium intake the first few weeks so you can have a feel of how much sodium there  is in your everyday food. I take it easy on weekends and don’t count my sodium intake.  The amount of sodium I eat on weekends would then be a bit higher than the rest of the week, but I keep it under 2000 mg when possible. Obviously, I’m not perfect and there are days when I have a muffin for breakfast or eat three cupcakes in a day or indulge in Clem’s fried chicken, but as long as I keep within my sodium intake goal 90% of the time I  feel good health-wise.

I was going to write about my meal plan, but I thought that this is a bit more exciting.

Let me talk to you about Herbie’s spice mixes. I’ve always been a big fan of Herbies, and recently they have come out with a range of boxed spice kits, including a Super Salt-Free Kit. They do have a lot more low sodium spice mixes than what’s included in the box though. Herbie’s tagine spice mix only has about 2 mg of sodium per tablespoon and more importantly, it’s very tasty. The dish below is clean-fridge-and-throw-everything-in-a-pot kind of meal, and the spice mix makes it taste like I put a lot more effort than I did. If you don’t have a tagine spice mix, use a Moroccan spice mix and throw in a cinnamon stick while everything is simmering.

Vegetable tagine

2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large onion, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 – 3 tbsp tagine/Moroccan spice mix
1 carrot, sliced
1 x 400 g can no-salt added diced tomatoes
250 g butternut pumpkin, cut into chunks
100 g French/round beans, cut in half
1 x 400 g can no-salt added chickpeas
2 tbsp no-salt added tomato paste

Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic, onion and tagine spice mix and sautee until onion is wilted. Add carrot, sautee for a couple of minutes. Bung in the tomatoes, tomato paste and a cup of water (less if you don’t like the sauce to be too runny). Bring to boil, cover and lower heat to simmer for 15 minutes.

Add pumpkin and simmer for about 20 – 30 minutes or until tender. Add beans and chickpeas and simmer for 8 – 10 minutes more or until beans are tender and chickpeas are heated through. Serve with couscous or rice.

This lasts me 5 meals, but if you’re really hungry it would feed four large eaters.

Nutritional information per serve

Approx. sodium count: 24 mg
Approx. calories: 187

Grey area food are technically “safe” things to eat but should be eaten in moderation.

Meat
All types of meat have small amounts of sodium, which helps it taste palatable in an otherwise unsalted dish. However, priority should be given to plant based food to help lower cholesterol and to assist weight loss (unless you’re eating 10 avocadoes a day, which I’m sure you’re not) if your high blood pressure is related to obesity. I can go on about the health benefits of eating less meat, but I won’t because I’m not a good enough writer. All I can say is I feel a lot better once I starting eating less meat (yeah yeah, I’ll get more vegetarian recipes up here soon…).

Sugar
Sugar -> weight gain -> risk of elevated blood pressure. OK?

Alcohol
Studies have shown that alcohol does increase the risk of high blood pressure. Drink lightly, always with food and avoid binge drinking like me.

“Salt-reduced” prepackaged food
This is up here because I’ve found that “salt reduced” can be a pretty misleading label. Always, always check the nutritional information on your food because “salt-reduced” doesn’t always mean “low sodium” – in most cases it just means “slightly less than 1000 mg of sodium per serving”. Use low-salt sauces sparingly – 1 tablespoon of Kikkoman salt-reduced soy sauce still has about 500 mg of sodium.

Next post: my daily meal plan!

This is a question I often get when I tell people I’m on a low sodium diet. My answer is usually a cranky “not much”, reserved for those times when the person across from me is scoffing down a bacon and egg roll. The truth is it’s difficult to find pre-packaged or pre-prepared (is this even a word?) low sodium meals, but if you’re willing to put a bit of effort into preparing your own food there is a lot you can eat. This series of blog posts will hopefully give some insight into preparing a low-sodium meal plan for newbies.

Can’t touch this:

Processed/cured meat
Just avoid this stuff like the plague. Example:

• 1 slice (20 g) of deli roast beef – 182 mg of sodium
• 1 rasher (40 g) bog-standardbacon – 840 mg sodium

Trust me, it’s just not worth it.

Stock/bouillon cubes & prepackaged stock
Salt cubes, more like.

Crisps
I know, they’re delicious. They’re also pretty awful for you and usually has a shit-ton of added sodium, especially the really orange ones (I’d rather not name names because these companies can afford better lawyers).

Bread & baked goods
There’s not a day that goes by without me pining for my carbs and cupcakes. Don’t be fooled by the non-saltiness of bread and cakes – 1 slice of Baker’s Delight Pane di Casa bread has 186 mg of sodium. As for sweet cakes, baking powder and baking soda adds a crazy amount of sodium without making it taste salty (in any case, sugar will mask any saltiness). According to this excellent site, 1/4 tsp of baking powder has approximately 120 mg of sodium while 1/8 tsp of baking soda adds 150 mg.

Tinned/powdered soup
Salt city. I don’t think I should have to choose between three thirtyitis and high blood pressure.

Tinned… everything
Check your tinned food properly, and always go for no-added salt stuff. Tinned beans are particularly notorious for having a high sodium count.

Cheese
Before you start crying, not all cheeses have the same sodium count. As a general rule, hard cheeses (e.g. cheddar, parmesan, aged cheese in general) have a much higher sodium count than soft (ricotta, bocconcini).

Bottled sauces
Soy sauce and fish sauce are no brainers, but check the sodium content of your tomato & BBQ sauces too.

Eat these:

Fruits & vegetables
This stuff is good for you and typically have very low sodium count.

Pasta
Depending on the brand, pasta normally has a low sodium count if prepared without salt (I know, I know… sacrilege and all that).

Grain starches
By this I mean grains that you have to cook from scratch, e.g. basmati rice, quinoa, burgul etc. Read the nutritional information though – a brand of couscous that I bought had significantly more sodium than average.

Dried pulses
Preparing these from scratch will help you control the amount of sodium that goes in a dish. Lentils that require no soaking are widely available in supermarkets.

Chocolate
Standard disclaimer: don’t go crazy. But seriously, good quality chocolate has little sodium and will keep you sane.

Next post: “grey area” food!

I went to see the doctor two weeks ago and as anticipated she took me off the oral contraceptives. We briefly discussed my concern about the PCOS symptoms. The result of that is a referral an (expensive) endocrinologist. I’ll have more on that when I finally see the endo on the 31st. We’ll know for sure then if the OC is what’s causing the spike in blood pressure.

Where does this leave the blog? I’m definitely not abandoning it – I’ve continued my low salt diet just to help things along. What I’m going to do though is to expand the scope of the blog. I’m now going to write about PCOS and my experiences with it as well. There will be a bit of TMI, but I know you don’t really mind.

Things aren’t looking great for our heroine, nut fans.

My blood pressure was high all week, not helped by an extremely stressful time at the office. It probably averages out to about 140/85 for the last three days. Some interesting things of note:

• My blood pressure is the lowest about half an hour after a workout – my lowest reading this week was about 117/74.
• It tends to be the highest before bedtime, not sure if this is an anxiety thing. On thursday it peaked at 150/96 before bed. I should be having a heart attack right about now, right?
• Hot showers also lower blood pressure.

I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that the doctor will take me off the pill and monitor again to see how things go. I’m not looking forward to my PCOS symptoms coming back so I’ll be discussing other options with my doctor when I see her on Monday.