Wednesday, April 14, 2010

the learning curve

I haven't done much cooking from scratch this week since the great Cornish game hen night (yum yum yum), but I did a lot of wandering through Safeway, King Soopers, and Whole Foods looking for low-sodium foods and salt-replacement products. I'm shocked at how much sodium some of my favorite foods actually have — mac & cheese, pre-packaged Annie Chun's meals, Progresso soups, the list goes on, even including some of my favorite "healthy" dressings. Maybe no more easy meals for me. I was also shocked and disappointed to learn the amount of sodium in one of my favorite "healthy" lunches -- Pita Pit.

A good friend told me about a product called Fortisalt out of SLC, made from minerals that works just like salt to enhance flavor, but with no sodium that is carried by natural food stores. No luck there, I called everywhere in COS including my shopping expedition to Whole Foods, and finally settled on purchasing a product called Nu-Salt, along with another sodium-free seasoning and a sodium-free Thai seasoning. Then I bought Fortisalt from Amazon, because I can't do anything half way. Will be sure to note how it works and how I like it.

I was pleased that no one noticed that I'd used Nu-Salt on the hens... and also pleased to find the Whole Foods' Tikka Masala sauce was low enough in sodium to justify purchasing. Soooo yummy.

There's definitely a learning curve to this — as I discover more and more about what is truly healthy. Low calorie, low fat, while important, really don't go the whole way or tell the entire story. I knew this of course, but I'm learning now just how much some of the things I've taken for granted are not as healthy as I thought they were.  It means I've got to do more cooking on the weekends and freeze meals so that when I have those late nights at work, I can have fast and easy and healthy meals... without having to eat the same thing for lunch and dinner three days in a row. Although, when Klark's home, leftovers will be less of a challenge and more of a dream.

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