Pumping Marvellous

The seasonings aisle at the supermarket can be overwhelming, especially if  you’re trying to find a healthy alternative to salt. There are many seasoning  products on the market and the ways the food industry promotes them can make it  difficult to find a healthy choice.  Sea salt has long been touted as a  healthy alterative to table salt and it’s no surprise that 61% of respondents in  a survey conducted by the American Heart Association believed sea salt to be  low-sodium alternative to table salt. Sea Salt is no better for you than normal table salt.

There are many other products  that are marketed as being healthy alternatives to salt. Commercial “salt  substitutes” are one such product.  Most salt substitutes contain potassium  chloride in place of sodium chloride.  By replacing sodium with potassium  in the chemical structure of salt, food scientists have developed a variety of “salt substitutes” that taste similar to table salt and that can help reduce  overall sodium intake when used in place of table salt.

You might be using a potassium based salt substitute  without realising it. It would be wise to go through your cupboard and  check ingredient labels — if you see potassium chloride listed, the seasoning is  a potassium based salt substitute.

Eat FRESH and manage that SODIUM

This is an excellent piece of advice from Donna Arnett president elect of the American Heart Association. In the excerpt it talks about sodium so what you need to know is the calcualtion that works this through to Salt. Here is the calculation –

“A healthy diet sustains us, but a poor diet can lead to increased blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar levels and weight and put you at heart disease risk.

According to Donna Arnett, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Epidemiology in the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health and president-elect of the American Heart Association, diet is only ‘one component of the overall cause of heart disease.’ But, Arnett asserted that it can exert a strong influence.

Sodium also is considered the culprit for the one in three Americans who develop high blood pressure. Sodium attracts water into your cells; the increased fluid raises your blood pressure and subsequently raises your risk of stroke and heart attack, heart failure and death, Arnett says.

Race also plays a role in risk. UAB researchers recently examined the effects of sodium intake by race using data from the ongoing Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke and found a stronger association with death in black participants than whites, says Suzanne Judd, assistant professor of biostatistics at UAB and the study’s lead author.

Blacks with the highest sodium intake (average of 2,600 mg/day) had a 62 percent increased risk of dying, while whites had no increased risk, she said. “This supports the AHA recommendation that there may need to be race-specific sodium guidelines, but everyone should reduce their sodium intake,” Judd says. The AHA has an aggressive sodium goal of 1,500 mg per day for everyone.

First, Arnett said, increase the amount of fruits and vegetables you eat daily, especially the leafy kind. “This provides more potassium, which is associated with lower blood pressure,” Arnett said.

“Fresh is the best source for fruits and vegetables, but canned versions can provide nutrition.” The primary drawback to canned and frozen foods is added sodium. But Arnett offers a solution: “Rinse these foods before cooking to help reduce sodium. Once rinsed, I think they are a great option for people on the go.” Fish also is on Arnett’s list of better food choices. “You should eat fish twice per week; fish are sources of the good fats associated with reduced risk of heart disease,” said Arnett.

When preparing your food, limit saturated fats such as those in butter, hard cheeses and red meats. “Avoid trans fats because they raise your bad cholesterol levels. So read food labels and look for partially hydrogenated oils, which is another name for trans fats,” Arnett says. Fats considered to be suitable for low consumption ? avocados, nuts, olives and olive oil ? are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which can help reduce the cholesterol levels in your blood and lower your risk of heart disease.

A big calorie-causing culprit is fizzy drinks and sports and energy drinks, Arnett says. “The hidden sugars in these beverages are a common cause of weight gain among young people. Limiting yourself to two 12 oz. cans per week to reduce the risk of obesity and diabetes,” Arnett added.” end

Salt / Sodium the hooded claw for Heart FailurePatients part 6

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Salt / Sodium the hooded claw for Heart Failure Patients part 5

Breakfast cereals

Breakfast cereals vary widely in salt content, so read labels carefully. Some of the most popular contain between 250 and 300 milligrams of sodium in a serving, though many people eat double that much at breakfast. And beware the “healthy” label; some of the highest-sodium cereals are those we consider healthiest, such as raisin bran. Kellogg’s Raisin Bran has 340 milligrams per serving ; instant oatmeal has as much as 350 milligrams per serving, depending on the flavor. So READ THE LABEL.

There is a lot of talk in the media and medical websites about Salt and it’s effects and that maybe it isn’t a bad thing after all? We would just like to say to you that you always have to keep an open mind to everything however salt is bad for Heart Failure patients in another way which is what we talk about. This is about salts ability to allow you to retain fluid in your body which means that the Heart works harder. This is a cause of Oedemas and is the reason why you take water tablets / diuretics like furosemide.

Always follow the guidelines outlined by your Doctor or Nurse. take the HYPE with a pinch of salt!

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Salt / Sodium the hooded claw for Heart Failure Patients part 4

Cheese and other dairy products

Salt is used in the making and preserving of many cheeses and cheese products, yet we don’t associate htem as salty. Rich, cheeses like blue cheese and gorgonzola are among the saltiest, all of them coming in between 350 and 500 milligrams per serving. Cheese spreads and dips often have as much as 500 milligrams of salt per serving, as can cheddar cheese. Parmesan, Romano, feta, and many of the other cheeses used in cooking are high in salt. Milk itself has 120 milligrams of sodium per half-cup serving; choose a flavoured chocolate milk instead and the level rises to 150 milligrams. A half-cup serving of a low-fat cottage cheese has twice as much sodium (360 milligrams) as a bag of potato chips!!!
Canned soups, stews, and vegetables –  The Campbell Soup Company made headlines recently by putting the sodium back into some of the company’s canned soups that had previously had the salt content reduced. The reason? Consumers weren’t buying the products because they didn’t taste as good-and that is where the problem is. People are so used to salt that it’s use is endemic in the population. I am a big chef type, well probably more home cook and I haven’t added salt into anything I have cooked in 5 years; why because I don’t need it and I am not addicted to the taste of it. It took about 3 months to wean myself off it but I satyed off it. My cooking style has adapted and when people come around for food they never comment about the blandness as it is not bland and I purposefuly challenge them about this. They are not just being polite they can’t tell the difference.

Many flavors of canned soup, from home-style chicken to simple tomato, contain 700-1,300 milligrams of sodium per serving. French onion soup is one of the worst, with 1,300 mg per serving. Canned beef stew and chili both have 1,000 to 1,200 milligrams per serving, and vegetable soups, like minestrone and split pea, contain 800-1,000 milligrams per serving. It’s also important to realize that a serving is often just half a cup, much less than the average person eats at a sitting. One last surprise lurks in some types of canned vegetables. One can of kidney beans contains 440 milligrams of sodium, and canned tomatoes with spices added can contain up to 600 milligrams of sodium per half cup.

Salt / Sodium The Hooded Claw for Heart Failure – Part 2

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Salt / Sodium the hooded claw for Heart Failure Patients

Hi my name is Chloe I am going to talk to you about the “hooded claw” of the food world for Heart Failure Patients. Over the next week or so you will find information that is crucial to managing salt intake for Heart Failure patients.

Reducing salt intake for Heart Failure Patients

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Bake your own Bread and Heart Failure

Anybody who has Heart Failure is constantly counting the salt numbers all the time and it isnt surprising that Bread has come up as a “Salt Evil Dooer”. If you have a look at the back of a loaf of bread you will be amazed with the levels of salt in each slice. Also supermarkets who bake their own bread on the premise don’t have to include nutritional information so what is lurking inside each loaf?

As a Heart Failure patient it is very important to curtail your salt intake as more salt intake means higher fluid retention and therefore more work for the heart – not a good recipe.

So Pumping Marvellous recommend you bake your own bread which costs less and is more nutritious as you determine what goes in and leave the lobbying to us.

One bread manufacturer said “that we have to put certain levels of salt in our bread to make it taste good” well if the population wasn’t hooked on salt then you wouldn’t have to. It’s a vicious circle which needs to be broken.

Recipes for you but don’t put the salt in!

Easy White Bread

Rustic Bread

Soda Bread

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Salts for the road

Thats what we think at Pumping Marvellous anyway. We were pleased to see that the drive by Greater Manchester campaign ASK influenced Stockport Council to try to get local fish and chip shops to remove the salt from the counter and from temptation of their customers by putting the salt under the counter and then the customer would have to request it. In our opinion the Express and Mail are really quite wrong in trying to create a stir about about Britains favourite dish, apart from the Curry and that could do with a lesson in salt reduction as well!

Everybody knows that too much salt is bad for you and for Heart Failure patients the level is reduced from the recommended 6g to 2g – you try to grab anything from a supermarket sandwich shelf with less than 1.5g of salt which equates to 75% of the recommended Heart Failure patients intake a day and the papers are going on about a “nanny state”  quiet irresponsible. Read the article here and here and hopefully you will realise that salt is just for roads.