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You're sitting at the table, you have a nice hot plate of food sitting right there in front of you. Now, what is the first thing that you do? If you're eating a standard American diet, likely the first thing you're going to do is reach for that salt shaker, and just dash that salt all over your plate. And that's likely even before you've tasted it, now our bodies need salt, but too much of it can be a problem.
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So in today's episode, we're gonna show you our top five ways to eat less salt and still enjoy great flavor.
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You're listening to the smarter Healthy Living podcast where we firmly believe that getting healthy should never feel like torture. We're your host, Jared and Anita Roussel were college sweethearts, and health professionals who help you redefine what getting healthy looks like using a whole food plant based lifestyle. It's time to hear from the experts and learn the best tips and tricks that helped others get beyond the overwhelm, to create a vibrant life they love. If you're sick and tired of being sick, and tired, you're in the right place. So pull up a virtual chair, grab your matcha latte. And let's get started.
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There are a lot of foods in the standard American diet that just have a lot of salt that we normally associate with being salty, like chips. You had well had thought about pickles, but bacon, maybe even things like popcorn. They're just a lot of salty things that are in our typical diet,
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and we like it. So a lot of times we seek out foods that have that salty flavor.
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And we need salt. I mean, our tongues even have salt receptors on them, it is a very important necessary nutrient that we have to have that we have to have. And when we're talking about salt, specifically, in this case, we're mentioning sodium. Now sodium is a mineral. It's like other minerals where you have potassium, magnesium, manganese, iron, and there's a much longer list than that. And these are minerals that our bodies must have. So we get them in our foods. Now, sodium is important with things like our muscle function, nerve function, which those two systems alone make up a huge part of our body. I mean, when you're talking about nerves, you're talking about your brain. So thinking, you're talking about the nerves that control your muscles that control your organs, just a lot of systems there. But it's also important for fluid regulation.
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Well, what does that mean? Well, that means keeping enough fluid in our bodies and our blood vessels, in the fluid in the tissues, like around the muscles and things of that nature. So it's very important, and we must have it, if we don't have enough, then that's a problem, we have
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a problem that standard diet, that usually not enough, we know you don't need to worry about that, though.
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It's not. But if you had some kind of rare medical disease where your sodium is too low, that's a problem. But on the flip side, too much sodium can be a problem. When you hear doctors
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say that a lot, I mean, or any kind of provider for that matter, you know, they'll say to their patient, don't eat so much salt, you need to cut back on salt. And so I think it's important to know why that is.
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But also, when we hear that automatically, we think flavor, you know, my foods gonna taste bland, it's not gonna taste good. And so then cardboard, well, we have a barrier at that point, then we don't want to do it. Because I know my foods cut, it tastes good. And I think a lot of people feel that way. So when your doctor brings this thing out, or your provider, and they say, a little fact, like don't eat this, don't eat that, eat less of this, and you don't really know how to do it, you're automatically going to Well, that's what flavors my food, that's what makes our food tastes good, our food is gonna taste awful. And so you just keep eating this massive amounts of salt, because nobody's telling you what you need to do to get that out of your life, and still enjoy flavor in your face.
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And there's a very good chance that up until that point, you've not really noticed any health issues, and some of them really go underneath the surface for a very long time before they cause problems. Now your kidneys are very good at balancing how much salt is in your system to a point, when you start getting too much, then they you just get more than what they can get rid of. And that's a huge problem with American diet because really about three fourths that 75% of our salt intake comes from a lot of highly processed foods, where it's added for flavor, but also to help preserve and they're just they're competing, well we want you to buy our food. So we're going to put this salt in there and, and really try to attract people to continue buying it over and over. And
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the reason that happens, I think is because you get used to it. It's like you think when you hear your doctor say donate it, you have to cut it all out automatically. And there's so many ways to do that, that that's not the case but it's better really to start backing off because your mouth gets used To those flavors. And so when the production of those different things happens like crackers, or you know, the companies come out with a snack foods or different foods, even breads and things like that sauces, there's a lot of hidden salt in there, and you eat it more and more and more and everything and everything. And all of a sudden, what used to taste salty to you doesn't anymore, you don't even notice it in there. And it takes more and more and more to get those flavors. And now if I would go back and eat some of those foods, it would taste incredibly salty to me, because we don't eat much salt and our typical diet. And so
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it's just not added salt.
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Yes. Right. And so you think about, you know, just how much is added in there. And that's one of those things that keeps you coming back for more.
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And then they keep adding more and more. So look at the ingredients, labels of the things that you eat, you won't believe how much is in there.
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It's really shocking. And we just don't know, because we don't taste it that way anymore.
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our taste buds get used to it, and then it doesn't taste salty, or doesn't say salty enough. So you find yourself adding more at the table to the things that are already actually quite salty.
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Okay, so now why the big deal? Why is having too much salt a problem? Well, when you get more than what your body can really handle, one of the first things that will happen is you start getting more fluid in your circulation. Because if you get too much sodium and it's too concentrated, your body doesn't like that your body likes balance. So you will start to retain more water to get it back to a normal concentration of
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water follows the salt exactly in your body. So if you have a lot of salt in your system or in your vessels, then a lot of water gets sucked into the vessels
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to try to maintain that balanced concentration.
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And then what happens.
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But then what
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happens is there's too much fluid in the system. And now there's hypertension, high blood pressure, your heart has to beat harder to play against that pressure to pump it over time that can cause heart disease cause blood vessel disease. And there are a number of different issues with that.
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And that's what I was saying earlier on is that these things can happen before you even know it. I mean, you might have a blood pressure normals, 120 over 80, you can get into 140 over 90 and never feel a symptom. Right now Your doctor may pick that up in the doctor's office with the blood pressure machine or blood pressure cuff.
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That I want to say one thing there too is that the automatic go to is you're found to have high blood pressure. And then what happens? Well, you need to go on blood pressure medication, you know, is that going to really address the root of the problem? And is it possible that if people have been taking blood pressure medication that if they stopped eating less salt and less of the foods that cause high blood pressure? Is it possible that they can come off of the blood pressure medication,
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it is possible.
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And what we've seen is that can happen. And science shows that that is a possibility. We're not telling you come off all your medications and start tweaking your diet, what we're saying is, you may start eating better, including less salt, and find that over time, you don't need the medication anymore with all the side effects and things that it comes with, again, to your Nan are not anti medication, both in the medical and nursing field. So, you know, we we believe that there's a time and place for medication, but we also know that they're greatly over the years when certain things can be happening in your life that are causing that. And that's the root cause, then if you just take medication, it's like putting a bandaid on a wound. I mean, you're not really addressing the actual cause of the problem. And you may short term control the blood pressure, but that doesn't necessarily stop some of the other issues that could
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be happening along with that. Yes. Another thing to it with fluid retention is that you can have puffy ankles, you can have swelling in your in your legs, your hands, I mean, just too much fluid overload. And these are a few of the reasons why you'd want to consider lowering your salt intake. And actually, I would even say normalizing your salt intake because we say lower, but it's lowering the amount that you're eating, but if you're eating whole plants, which will have more than enough sodium for what your body needs, that's really more normalizing your intake.
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Right and when you stop eating so much like you start tasting the sodium in the foods in the plant foods we take.
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Yeah, I mean celery is very salty. There are a lot of plant based foods that have well they most of them have sodium right?
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Well, yes, because it's a mineral and minerals are in the ground. Right? And so when it goes into plant we eat it and then it's in us. Okay, so I do I look I saw recently that they said eggplant was a good source of sodium and there are a lot of other ones. I just happen to remember that when plus it's one of the neatest, favorite food colors purple and purple foods,
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how to get the purple.
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So we want to talk about our five top ways to eat less salt but still enjoy great flavor in your food because that is so important. Yeah, I mean that's that's a key factor in our house. I'll tell you if It's not delicious, and you don't want to have no part.
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Get it out Why? I mean, why Really? We eat food? Yes, the number one thing is to fuel our body. So we want to fuel them well, but if it doesn't taste good, are you kidding? Is it something you'll continue to do for the rest of your life and that's the problem with diets. A lot of times
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you suffer through it for a while, but you just reach a point where you say, I can't do this anymore. Oh,
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it's not livable, it's not enjoyable. You've got to build a life for yourself that you love. One of the first ways and the easiest ways to decrease your salt intake is stop buying foods with that added that can beans, even healthy plant base, you can buy things like I said, certain people buy tetra packs or cans of beans, and they have a lot of salt added many times.
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So look for ones that have low sodium or even better yet no sodium. If you can't find that just rent your beans and a colander before you use a metal remove a ton of the setting that's been added.
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Now if you look at the label, it will likely still say that there is sodium in there even if none is added because that is what's naturally present in the food.
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But we've talked about you know, there are a lot of different foods that have salt added the snack foods and things you won't even think about like sauces well did you know that mustard has a lot of salt, add it look for one that has lower salt, or no salt added ketchup sauces, even hummus can have a lot of salt added which is a great way to make reason to make your own. And you know, if you have something that you can just blend up beans in, add a little bit of tahini, and then add the things you like like roasted red peppers, always garlic, and always some lemon zest and they're
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a little vinegar, apple cider vinegar.
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And we'll talk about vinegar in a few minutes. But that's a great thing to add to hummus so that you don't have to add more salt. And sometimes we use tomorrow, which is basically soy sauce without reading it.
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But what you need to do is buy the low sodium and know that even the low sodium tomorrow still has a boatload of salt in it. So I mean, really, it just takes very, very little of it.
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If you're going to use that for the umami flavor in your food, don't just pour it all over your feed. And then again, we talked about plant foods naturally have salt in them. So that was that number one was just about buying foods without salt or lower salt versions of the foods that you love. Number two, don't salt when you cook salt afterwards, or better yet, use other seasonings afterwards that help you to replicate and get some of those really good flavors in there without having to add the salt. And then over time, like we've said, your taste buds will change and it takes less and less and less I don't think about going no salt. Think about I'm just going to add a little less v usually due to cranks have salt on your food dumon for a while, then go to a half crank and then go to no cranks. And pretty soon, you won't believe you'll taste it those different flavors, but you won't need to add the salt at the table.
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Another way you can add less is and we mentioned this a little bit before is add vinegars.
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Vinegar is an amazing way to give a flavor that it really just kind of replaces the salty flavor. It gives such a strong, vibrant, robust flavor to foods.
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You don't miss the salt when you add the vinegar. There's
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no and it's not that it's adding a saltiness to it.
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It's that it has, like you said that the acidity it has such a strong flavor that salt many times gives that you don't miss it, you're getting a good strong flavor in your food, which is what you're wanting in the first place. Right?
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Right. That's why you added so much salt. Well what about different kinds of vinegar, so you don't have to reach for white vinegar. And actually we don't recommend adding white vinegar to your feed. So there are a ton of different kinds of look in your store. Walk down the aisles look at what's available and vinegars balsamic pomegranate, I'm just I'm not even going to go over on apple
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cider vinegar. Those the balsamic and apple cider are the ones we use the most. But there are a ton of them on there
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and a lot of different vinegars. Yeah, there are tons of different vinegars just explore and buy something, they all taste different. They don't you think of vinegar as white vinegar, but don't do white vinegar. There are so many other great options out there. So add the vinegars. And the last way that we recommend is get a lot of seasonings in there, buy seasoning blends that are salt free, but be sure that you turn over and look at the ingredients label because oftentimes, there's added sugars added quite natural flavors, artificial flavors, I can put a lot of things in there, call it a natural flavor. You want to avoid those whenever possible.
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Also anti caking agents that's very, very likely you're gonna see that on there. I mean, they're used a lot. And then the other thing is that will shock you
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added oils, oil
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could not believe that when we stopped eating oil, and that was a major cause of my inflammation and pain. So you really want to look at buying things without any added oil at all.
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And there's Not a lot in there just because you're not getting this, this goopy bottle of herbs and stuff there was still dry and it still would shake in the bottle but I'm not really sure why they would add that what function it would have given that it was likely very little, but little bits here and little bits there do add up
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probably prolonging shelf life I'm guessing for some reason, I don't know how that would be.
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Because oils get
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older they do spoil and go rancid. There's probably a reasoning behind that. But I don't want to see all I must spice it so we don't buy that.
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But anyway, those are the main reasons to buy food without it.
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If you can't find it, rinse it if possible. Don't salt while you cook season afterwards.
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Also, just use a bit less over time and things will start tasting salt to your to you. And you'll notice flavors in foods that you never have found there before. Add in vinegars anytime to just experiment, find something new, something that you love, make it fun and enjoyable. You'll find things that you never knew even existed and it just makes it fun. And then add seasoning blends and spices that don't contain salt.
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And always remember to read the ingredients label.
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Thank you for joining us in this episode. Today. We consider it a privilege to be part of your day, and we'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at podcast at the crunchy couple.com and let us know how this show has helped you. Or if you have ideas for future podcast episodes you'd love to hear send that to and don't forget to leave a rating and review. We've enjoyed our time together and we'll see you on the next episode.
