Things I'm learning about sodium....

The following is a post I found that I forgot to publish! Oops! It prompted me to put in an original post about DS 2's health, leading to the reason for this post. Confused? Read the post on Ds2's health first, then read this one. ;)



Here is the info I've found that helps me understand labeling a little bit better that I thought you might be interested in:

Sodium free - Less than 5 mg per serving.

Very Low Sodium - 35 mg or less per serving.

Light in Sodium - 140 mg or less per serving than the reference amount*. (If the food is not "low in sodium" the statement "not a low sodium food" must appear on the same panel as the Nutrition Facts panel.)

Reduced or Less Sodium - At least 25% less per serving than reference amount.*

* this means, (I think), that if you were to compare the same product: 1 being "regular sodium" and the other being the "light or Reduced sodium". Think of it like Soy sauce. I know you have changed awhile back to the lower sodium Soy Sauce with the green label, simply because it tastes the same as the Soy sauce with the red label and has a lot less sodium.

So this is what I have to look for. Basically, unless I can't substitute an ingredient, I'm looking for the Very Low Sodium to Sodium free label. Hard to find! Even the health food stores, most of their products are not usually sodium free. It boils down to this: Make EVERYTHING homemade as absolutely much as possible. What I'm trying to learn is what things you can make up and package ahead of time to have on-hand for the busy days. It is a huge challenge, and although gets stressful, is sort of fun. I know, I must be crazy, but at least I have a good attitude in general. :) I must make all our own bread. I still buy store bread to have on hand, but am making bread in the machine my mother in law gave me. And, she said we could have her chest freezer so pray that they are able to bring it to us this wk! That would help HUGELY! Once I get an extra freezer, I am going to be doing the once-a-month cooking. I did a gigantic undertaking of making up a 37 day menu this weekend, and a grocery list for each week. A friend gave me a blank calendar and said once she buckled down and did it, it really helped. I plan on doing at least one more month (on paper), maybe two, and then we will pretty much stick to whatever is on which day for convenience sake. Sundays are always "down home cooking" days, Mondays are Soups/Stews, Tuesdays are Leftovers, Wednesdays are 'quick' food days because of church (which I can partially prepare on Tuesdays since they are leftover days and I'll have some extra time), Thursdays are Salad days, Fridays rotate between Italian/Mexican, and Saturdays are our Wild Card days. So whatever unique recipe I find, is what I plan. (ie: things we haven't tried yet like shrimp scampi or hobo pie. Not anything gross like liver or cow tongue. YUCK!!!) But then after I got this done, I had to tweak it because one week we ended up having too much red meat and another we had pork in some form almost the whole week. So I had to switch a few things. It has been a massive undertaking! I spent about 10 hours planning the menu and writing out the grocery lists for each week, then I spent about 5 hours grocery shopping on Saturday! Well, I had to get a food processor because I've almost broken my blender trying to make bread crumbs and things its not meant to do, so I had to get that from the Kitchen store at the mall, and I had to also get a good set of measuring cups & spoons because now that I'm doing soooo much cooking, I realize what I have are bits and pieces, which won't do. I also had to go to two health food stores to track down things like sodium free baking powder and soda, and Soy sauce substitute. I am determined to beat this thing and learn the most I can to help my boy and my family, though! It will not beat me!