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cheryl181429
cheryl181429 Posts: 2 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I hope to get help tracking and planning my diet. I'm retired and love to knit. I have many health problems and need ideas to keep me on track. I must watch carbs and sodium. The hardest thing for me is learning to prepare and eat low or no sodium foods. Since I was a salt-a-holic, that's pretty hard, but I'm getting used to it. I'll be watching the discussions to find help when I need it most!

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  • Camo_xxx
    Camo_xxx Posts: 1,082 Member
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    Welcome to MFP , here are a few tips to help as you get started.

    1. The MFP food database is fraught with user added data that contains errors or no sodium data. When searching for a food item use.
    Food type, raw or cooked, USDA Example: yam, raw, USDA
    2. You can change which macros, including sodium that are displayed in your food dairy.
    3.If you are using the app you can look at your daily sodium both on your dairy and on your nutrient tab, select nutrition, it will show a pie chart, in the upper right corner is the tab or symbol for a list. Select that and you can all your micro info.
  • barryplumber
    barryplumber Posts: 401 Member
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    I lost a lot of weight when I was first told to cut my sodium intake to 1500mg/day. It took a little while to find the food and spices I could eat and I love my spices. Mrs Dash I found masks lots of no salt spices so that saved me there. Bread was harder best to make your own and cut the salt to 1/4 table soon just enough for the yeast to work then you have low sodium bread.As I said it takes awhile but you will find foods eating out is really hard
  • kshay89
    kshay89 Posts: 15 Member
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    The biggest thing to lower sodium intake is just going to be making as much from scratch as possible. Typically, in home cooking we don't use near the amount of salt/sodium that is used in commercial food production and restaurants. Making bread, stocks, soups, sauces, etc. from scratch will drastically cut your sodium. It certainly takes a lot of work and planning, but perhaps learning to cook everything from scratch can be another hobby? :smiley:
  • hncary
    hncary Posts: 176 Member
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    kshay89 wrote: »
    The biggest thing to lower sodium intake is just going to be making as much from scratch as possible. Typically, in home cooking we don't use near the amount of salt/sodium that is used in commercial food production and restaurants. Making bread, stocks, soups, sauces, etc. from scratch will drastically cut your sodium. It certainly takes a lot of work and planning, but perhaps learning to cook everything from scratch can be another hobby? :smiley:

    Plus, a lot of these things you can make in bulk and freeze so it really won't be that much more work :) I like to make soups and pasta sauce in large portions and freeze for later.
  • Camo_xxx
    Camo_xxx Posts: 1,082 Member
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    It seemed daunting to me at first especially when I started tracking it. I tried to eat like before and just cut down but in the end I finally ditched almost all processed and packaged foods.. But when your health is at stake you do what must be done or die sooner then not doing. Good motivator.

    Now it is just intuitive and doesn't really take any more planning then not cooking from scratch. I can make a meal quicker then some people stare into the freezer trying to decide what package they are going to microwave.

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