Use: The low salt diet is used for persons with diseases that affect fluid balance or where a decrease in body fluid volume will relieve symptoms of the disease. Conditions where control may be indicated are severe heart failure, impaired liver function, high blood pressure, and acute and chronic kidney disease.
Here are the following guidelines to help reduce the amount of sodium in your diet
* Take the salt shaker off the table and omit salt from recipes and food preparation.* Cook without salt or with only small amounts of added salt.* Learn to enjoy the flavors of unsalted foods.* Try flavoring foods with herbs, spices, and lemon juice.* Read food labels carefully to determine the amounts of sodium. Learn to recognize ingredients that contain sodium. Salt, soy sauce, salt brine or any ingredient with sodium (such as monosodium glutamate) or baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) as part of its name contains sodium.* Rinsing canned vegetables and fish will remove much of the salt.* Season or marinate meat, poultry, and fish ahead of time with onion, garlic and your favorite herbs before cooking to bring out the flavor.* Some terms describing sodium content: lite, light, lightly salted, low sodium, reduced sodium, sodium free, unsalted, no salt added, without salt added, very low sodium.* Use lower sodium products, when available, to replace those with higher sodium content.* Use simple techniques like saving chicken broth from a chicken you cook at home rather than buying a canned, powdered or bouillon cube broth.* When dining out words that signal high sodium include: smoked, barbecued, pickled, broth, soy sauce, teriyaki, creole sauce, marinated, cocktail sauce, tomato base, Parmesan, and mustard sauce. |