Reducing Sodium - trickier than you think

To manage the edema and help the kidneys recover Ada was placed on a low sodium diet. I quickly learned that "No added salt" did not equal "low sodium"



The first days after we came home from the hospital Ada continued to increase in puffiness. The skin around her eyes was so tight I called the hospital, worried about infection, but because the skin was not warm and she wasn't running a fever they said it was just the edema and we needed to restrict sodium just as much as we could. I made it my personal goal to keep her sodium between 300 & 500 mg a day.



The charts included (click on to increase size) show how much sodium is in natural and processed foods. Pretty much anything in a can or box was out. Also out was anything made with salt, baking powder, or baking soda. We took everything high sodium out of the cupboards and put it down in the pantry. It served us well that I was use to making a lot of things from scratch.



My biggest concern was bread. One slice of store bread is 160 mg sodium, almost half of what I wanted her getting. So priority number one was to make our own bread. I switched from butter to shortning, left the salt out completely, and found the lowest sodium milk I could. Doing that we had bread down to 10 mg per roll.



We filled the house with fresh fruits and vegitables for her to have for snack, and started cooking everything without salt, or season salts.



I also found a Baking Powder that is sodium free. It was kinda pricey, but it let us put pancakes back on the menu. I also got a recipe for tortillas that had no sodium, and were surprisingly easy to make. So now we can make veggie wraps.

I learned that yogurt, sour cream, and cream cheese made good substitutes for mayo and dips, and I also learned to make vinegrettes to use in place of salad dressing.

One more thing we did. We switched off our water softener on the cold line to the kitchen sink. I was surprised to learn how much sodium that puts in our drinking water. Not a big concern, except when we are trying to limit sodium.


Doing all this we have been able to keep her diet in the low 300's. And it must be working, because the edema is reversing and the protiens are starting to drop. Hurray!!

Once she is doing better, we will ease up and return to the hospital recomendation of under 2000 mg a day. But that should be cakewalk compared to what we have been doing. And I am convinced if we hadn't restricted her sodium so much she would have been hospitalized for pressure on her heart or lungs due the increasing edema.

Mayo Clinic has some great recipies for low sodium (or low fat, or gluten free for that matter) which I look forward to trying. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-recipes/RE99999