Who doesn’t want a tasty delicious meal?
Even if you hate spicy food, you want to enjoy your food. So when the doctor says you need to reduce your salt or cut of salt altogether it can be a very hard thing to do.
Today, we are going to look at how to curb that alt tooth and change your salt loving habits.
Now I know the first suggestion is to stop salt altogether.
While that may sound like the best option.
It defeats one of the reasons we eat. That reason is for pleasure.
Yes, we eat to nourish and live but we also eat to enjoy the experience.
When food becomes boring and tasteless we are less likely to eat. (This is the no one reason why healthy food is unattractive to many of us find it difficult to eat healthily.
So what do we do?
Here are some tips to help you with reducing salt in your food, keeping it tasty, and most importantly staying healthy.
- Avoid packaged food- Now you’re probably thinking, I don’t eat packaged food.
Well, let’s see. You’re probably right. You most likely don’t eat packages of food but you eat food prepared by others.
So if you
- Eat out (either at eateries, fast-food, joints)
- Enjoy already prepared proteins like tinned fish, smoked fish, dried fish, killinshi (dried meat).
- Enjoy instant noodles
- Enjoy pastries like bread, cake, pies, sausages
Though these are nor packaged they have gone through some preparation which requires salt.
Some. of these items are very necessary to prepare our meals.
The salt content is however high.
So you must reduce this food if you are trying to reduce your salt in your diet.
- Use other spices like garlic, lemon, celery, Curry, oregano, pepper and basil.
Salt brings out savor so you still need it even with these spices.
However you now just need a little to bring out the flavour of the food. - Stop using seasoning cubes: Many times salt is seen as the culprit. Th truth is seasoning cubs worsen it’s effect because it also contains sodium. So cut them of completely.
- Use low heat when cooking. Yes it will take longer but it will help retain the flavour of your food so you do not need to much salt to season food.
- Reduce the amount of water you cook with.
Water tends to dilute flavour and makes food tasteless when used in excess, so reduce water and reduce heat and watch the flavour of your meal jump out. - Make lemon, coconut oil and olive oil your cooking companions. When added in the right quantity they bring flavour to your meals.
- Use local seasonings like iru, ogiri, dawadawa. They add flavour to your meals
Now I know a lot of this is easier said than done.
So in the next “get of medication challenge”, I’m going to show you how to do this.
And the next challenge will be from May 20th-27th.
To be part of it simply click on the link below