Manjula's Kitchen

Manjula's wonderful Indian vegetarian cookery site is full of inspiration for great home-cooked food. One section I really like is the breads; it's so easy to spend time making a low sodium curry from scratch, but then mess up the meal by eating it with salty supermarket naans.

Making fresh Indian breads is really easy - especially the roti, which I can now knock up in about 10 minutes, having watched the easy step-by-step video on Manjula's site, and a bit of trial-and-error. I don't have a US cup measure, but use a little rammekin instead. Of course I leave out the salt :-), and they are fine without, but I found some black onion seeds at the market which are great for making salt-free naans more interesting.

Salt in Pasta Sauces

No shock here, as shop-bought pasta sauces are revealed to be high in salt. You can read the full report, from CASH, here. Worst of the lot was Jamie Oliver's range, with 5.3g salt per portion for his Spicy Olive, Garlic and Tomato sauce (no excuse for all that salt if it's spicy!). There are a couple of good Weight Watchers options there though, and it's worth noting that, although the pestos were generally high in salt per 100g, you would of course eat far less of it per serving than a sauce.

Pret a Manger - Update

Just been onto the Pret website to get some details so I can post some of the lower sodium sandwiches at Pret for my other half, for the days I don't manage to do him a packed lunch!

Egg Mayo & Bacon Breakfast Baguette 0.4445 g sodium per pack (this is lower than the egg & tomato version)
Posh Cheddar & Pickle Baguette 0.5048 g sodium per pack
Mature cheddar & pickle sandwiches 0.5906 g sodium per pack

500 Low Sodium Recipes

"500 Low Sodium recipes" is a book that I have heard of before, but hesitated to buy it as it's written by an American author, and I have often found that online recipes from the US contain ingredients not available here. However I found an extract available online, for free, today and it's really very good, so I have ordered a copy from eBay.

You can find the extract, which is 60 pages long, on Google Books here - there's a very readable introduction, and pages of salt-free seasoning mixes, sauces and marinades.

Nina and the Neurons Go Low Sodium

It seems as though my obsession has become more widespread, with even pre-school science experts Nina and the Neurons getting in on the act. Thanks to the BBC for the undoubtedly copyrighted image.

Getting Help and Advice - the BPA

Just wanted to highlight the great work by Fiona and Liz, the Blood pressure Association nurses who are there to answer questions about BP on the BPA Forum. If you have a question about any aspect of hypertension, lifestyle or diet that's the place to go.

They have a helpline too, the number is 0845 241 0989 and it's open 11am-3pm, Monday to Friday.

Saltrite

A product I've missed while I've been offline...Saltrite table salt substitute contains only 0.08% sodium, and (according to the manufacturer) tastes great.

Kill or Cure?

Damn you, Daily Mail
Originally uploaded by floongle

I spend a fair bit of time reading health-related news items, so this website tickled me. It aims to "help to make sense of the Daily Mail’s ongoing effort to classify every inanimate object into those that cause cancer and those that prevent it". The number of things which are claimed do both (e.g. alcohol, milk), according to various studies, should remind us just how much research there needs to be before a definitive answer is found.

Which reminds me of the site Sense about Science, which I urge anybody using the internet to read up on health issues to take a look at.

News Roundup from CASH and the BPA

While I've been offline, CASH have of course been continuing their excellent work (for which they've received an award from the Chief Medical Officer), highlighting the sodium levels in foods targetted at those on special diets (I have one of those nasty nut allergies, so a subject close to my heart).

Also, the Blood Pressure Association has confirmed what your gran always told you, that porridge is the best possible breakfast, and that there may be an explanation for how vegetables help to lower your BP. Know Your Numbers Week was last month, and a survey showed that black cab drivers throughout the country, like many of us, have high blood pressure, and don't know it.

Also in the news - I have heard that restaurants and retailers are continuing to lower their sodium levels. More on this soon...

FSA Salt Calculator

Hello again! Thinking of disinterring this blog...and wanted to share this with you.

The FSA have launched a salt calculator here (scroll down a bit), which you can use to more easily compare salt contents of foods. They've also launched an app for the iPhone called FSA Salt, which is free. I've tried it and it's really good. But then I am a bit of a geek.

A great way of fathoming out what the various different labels are trying to tell you.

Bye!

If this is your first visit to this blog, and you are looking to reduce your sodium intake, then do take a look at my Top Ten Tips as a starting point. That post links through to lots of other parts of the blog.

A low sodium diet has now become a way of life for us at home, although we still allow ourselves to lapse on holiday and when eating out (we're not angels, so perfect behaviour would be an unrealistic goal!). Together with regular use of Resperate, and a switch to low/alcohol-free beer, it has brought down Mr. C's blood pressure from the dizzy heights of 174/112 to a level that is at the top end of the normal range (under 140/90). It's a fantastic result after slightly under a year, and without resorting to drugs, and just goes to show how much diet and lifestyle really do have a direct impact on your health. I think that he is also a calmer person now, and suspect that this may be down to having lower blood pressure (not that he was overly stressed-out before).

I also think our kids are benefiting. Our eldest is nearly 7 and now shows much more of an interest in eating mummy's home cooking (and in watching and helping me cook), and our youngest was weaned after our low salt diet started, so has never got into our bad habits. I hope they stick with a healthy lifestyle as they get older. I'm delighted with the positive effects on Mr. C's health, but the potential effect on our daughters' future eating habits is even more important, especially if they have inherited their dad's tendency to high blood pressure.

Now that we've achieved our goal, I have decided to stop posting to this blog, and to direct my energy and time elsewhere (although of course we need to continue with our good habits!). I hope the information here has helped someone. Any comments posted below will still come through to my email inbox, and I'll reply when I can. Good luck with your own journeys towards a healthier lifestyle - I hope you see the same positive effects that we have seen.

Alcohol Free Week 2009

Celebrate Alcohol Free Week 2009 with offers from the excellent Alcohol Free Shop. It coincides with Lent, so what's your excuse not to skip the booze?...

Salt Awareness Week 2009 - 2nd to 8th February

Next week is CASH's annual Salt Awareness Week. Their website has lots of guidance, and information on recent research, and is well worth a visit.

Or why not take a look at my top ten tips for reducing your sodium intake? If you can only manage to take one step, the single easiest and most effective way to reduce your salt intake is to change your breakfast cereal.

Know Your Numbers - Results

The results of the Blood Pressure Association's "Know Your Numbers" week are in, and it makes sobering reading.

At least 246,000 adults across the UK had a free blood pressure check. Only 24% of people tested had an 'optimal' reading. This means 76% (187,000) of those tested should be taking positive action to lower their blood pressure.

Across the UK, 38% (more than 93,000 people) had high blood pressure readings (at least 140/90mmHg) which needed further investigation.

Even 'average' readings across the UK fell into the 'high normal' definition (130/85 - 139/89mmHg). The final report is here. See page 6 for the headlines.

How to Make Lovely Salt-Free Bread with a Bread Machine

I have been using my bread machine two or three times a week now for the last 9 months, and have only just got to the point where my bread is good enough for my discerning 6 year old daughter. I’m absolutely delighted to be able to stop buying her white sliced, because it is full of salt and goodness knows what other rubbish, and also because she never used to get through the whole loaf before it went mouldy (it was only her that ate it), meaning we had lots of waste. Now that she eats my bread I know exactly what she’s getting and it’s a huge improvement.

Here's what I have learned about baking salt-free bread.

1. Flour – use the best you can – we are lucky enough to have a mill down the road from us at Redbournbury - although it's not cheap, it's great flour and I like the fact that it's so local.

2. Salt - plenty of people will tell you that salt is an essential ingredient in bread. That’s a load of rubbish - I use no salt at all and make delicious bread. However, you may find you need to experiment a little to get the quantities right. Without salt, I generally find that I need less sugar and perhaps a little less yeast than the recipe recommends (sugar stimulates the action of the yeast; salt damps it down). I am told that salt-free bread goes stale quicker than shop-bought bread (but it will be so delicious that it probably won't be around long enough to get to that point).

3. Water – I generally use a splash more than the recommended quantity. I then go back to the bread machine when it’s 10 minutes into its cycle (I use the cooker timer to remind me) and take a look to see if I need any more.

4. Flavour – in just a few weeks, you will get used to the taste of salt-free bread. If you do miss the salt however, adding a little bitterness seems to compensate - try finely chopped rosemary added to the dough, or poppy seeds sprinkled on top.

5. Bake it in the oven instead of the machine - my bread machine produces a decent enough loaf, but it's a cube shape, with a hole in the end where the blade was, and doesn't always have the best texture. To get much better results...
- use the "dough" option on the machine to make the dough (on my machine, this takes 90 mins)
- shape it and pop it into a loaf tin (I don't "knock it back" too much), put a cut lengthways along the top (glaze and add seeds at this point if you want)
- leave in a warm place for half an hour
- bake it in the oven for half an hour. I use the small top oven of my cooker (sitting on the bottom of the oven rather than on a shelf). This gives a really good, crusty loaf.

The "Bag of Crisps" Measurement

In the same spirit that people describe the size of a country by how many times Wales would fit into it (why is it always Wales?), I have been trying out a new way unit of measurement for sodium levels - the "bag of crisps". The bag of crisps I am using is Walker's Ready Salted, which contains 0.5g of salt (per 34.5g bag), a nice round number.

So, here are a few "bag of crisps" measurements:

1 bag of crisps:
=1 bowl of Kelloggs Cornflakes

2 bags of crisps:
=1 slice of toast, buttered, with Marmite
=50g Edam

4 bags of crisps:
=1 small (200g) tin Heinz baked beans with sausages

8 bags of crisps:
=Half a medium-sized Dominos Pepperoni Passion

Kids' Salt Intake

I have two kids so this is a subject close to my heart. Our youngest only moved onto solids after we had started our low sodium diet, but it is taking our 6 year old a while to adapt (she has only now decided that she will eat mummy's bread rather than shop-bought white sliced).

The recommended daily sodium intake for children is obviously lower than that for adults, you can find lots of good information and advice in this leaflet on the CASH website.

The main sources of salt in children's diets are as follows (from here):

40% from cereal & cereal products e.g. bread, breakfast cereals, 'morning goods'
21% from meat & meat products e.g. bacon & ham, burgers, sausages
9% from potatoes e.g. coated oven chips, croquettes
9% from milk & milk products e.g. yoghurts, cheese

Low Salt Carrot and Coriander Soup

Another recipe for leftovers. I made this with some carrots which were looking a bit tired in the bottom of the fridge, and some droopy coriander left over from a curry I made last week. Use olive oil/yoghurt instead of butter/cream to make it a bit healthier.

I made some croutons to go with this with some stale bread (it goes off quickly with no salt in it) by cutting it into cubes, drizzling in olive oil and putting it in a hot oven for 8 minutes (turn halfway through, and season with black pepper at the end).

Serves 2

Ingredients
25g unsalted butter
4 carrots, peeled and diced
400ml low sodium chicken stock (from a stock cube, or ideally home made)
1 large handful fresh coriander, roughly chopped
Red chilli to taste (I used about 1tsp from one of those jars of pre-prepared stuff)
110ml double cream
black pepper

Method
1. Sauté the carrot for 5-6 minutes in the butter to soften.
2. Slowly add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 10-12 minutes.
3. Add the coriander, chilli and cream and season to taste.
4. Blend the soup with a hand blender until smooth.
5. Return the soup to the saucepan and over a low heat stir to heat through.
6. Season and serve

The NaC-hell Retailer Award 2008

I'm going to make this an annual award - this year's focuses on the major UK retailers/supermarkets. I did a survey, to see which is the best place to shop for a low sodium diet. I got in touch with them all at the beginning of December, via email (except for Morrisons, for whom I used snail mail as there was no email address available).

	Please could you provide a listing of low sodium products?	Do you have a reduced sodium own brand ready meal range?	Do you have an initiative to reduce sodium in your products?	Do you have clear labelling?
Tesco	No response	Yes - Healthy Living	No response	No response
Asda	No	Yes	No	Yes
Sainsbury's	No	Yes, Super Naturals	Yes	Yes
Morrisons	No	No	No response	Yes
M&S	Yes	Yes - Eat Well	Yes	Yes
Waitrose	Yes	Yes - Perfectly Balanced	Yes	Yes

I must admit I was a little disappointed not to receive a response from Tesco, as the biggest retailer here. They do however have a decent website, and an online nutritionist. See here for their guidance on salt, and product labelling.

Asda also have a good website. See here for their guidance on salt and product labelling.

Sainsbury's tell me that they were at the forefront of the push for better product labelling. See here for their guidance on salt and labelling.

Morrisons have a page on "switching the salt" on their website.

Marks and Spencer and Waitrose get points for being the only two retailers to send me a listing of low sodium products. Waitrose sent me a huge list of everything that they sell that is low in sodium in the post. Marks and Spencer sent me a listing on a spreadsheet via email - I must say their nutritionist was very helpful, and having the list in Excel is fantastic, as it means I can sort on the sodium content column, to find the lowest.

Waitrose's guidance on salt and labelling are here.

See here for M&S' guidance on salt and labelling. They seem to be taking salt reduction seriously, and have made it part of their "Plan A" campaign. And for that, M&S are the winner of the NaC-Hell Retailer Award for 2008!

Low Salt Corn Chowder

We've just been given a kitchen bin from the Council for recycling kitchen scraps, and I have been shocked at the amount of food we throw away, so I'm trying to get into the habit of using up odds and ends instead of throwing them away. I had almost a whole tin of sweetcorn left over from doing something for the kids today, so quickly knocked up one portion of this soup with it and put it in the freezer. The spices mean you don't notice the lack of salt. It's adapted from a Lesley Waters recipe - for a healthier version you can use olive oil and yoghurt instead of butter and cream.

Serves 2

Ingredients
Half an onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
25g butter
12 baby sweetcorn, chopped, or 2 small tins of sweetcorn, rinsed of salt
4 cherry tomatoes, halved
300ml low sodium vegetable stock
Half a baking-sized potato, diced
Splash white wine
1 tsp cumin
Seeds from 2 cardamom pods
1 tsp turmeric
150ml cream

Method
1. In a large saucepan sauté the onion and garlic in the butter (adding the garlic for the last minute only)
2. Add the corn and potato and cook for 1 minute
3. Add the spices and stir
4. Add the wine and stock and cook for 5 minutes
5. Add the cream and cook for a further 5 minutes, adding the tomatoes
6. Whizz up with a hand blender, leaving plenty of chunks
7. Season to taste with black pepper

Low Sodium Bloody Mary

Blood Marys are something we used to like to have occasionally as a treat, so I'm really pleased to have come up with a low sodium version. The tomato juice and worcester sauce normally make it a really salty drink. In particular, tomato juice comes out at around 0.3g per 100 ml (see here for the levels in pub favourite Britvic; other juices are about the same)

Here's the ingredient list for my low sodium version - just mix it together. Links are to the Ocado site as I was busy doing my shopping there (they have a Tesco price match thing going at the moment), but the products are available all over the place...

Basics:
2 ice cubes
2 shots of vodka
200 ml Sunraysia Tomato Juice (just tomatoes, no added salt)

Adjust quantities to taste:
Lemon juice
Dash Life Worcestershire Sauce (made with LoSalt)
A couple of drops of Tabasco Sauce
Black pepper

Optional Garnish (makes it prettier and adds some vitamins):
Celery stick stirrer
Cherry tomato