Get the Salt Out (61 page)

379
Get into the habit of using sweet starchy vegetables in desserts.
Vegetables such as sweet potatoes and winter squash are naturally sweet, high in fiber, and high in potassium, yet quite low in sodium. This means they are terrific ingredients to help you make low-sugar, low-sodium, extremely healthful desserts. Try baking acorn squash and adding a dab of butter, a few drops of real maple syrup, and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg. Or bake a sweet potato, scoop out the inside, and mash it together with one banana, then sprinkle with toasted chopped pecans.
One Salt Shaker.

380
Learn to shop for healthful treats in natural food stores.
Although commercial cookies and other baked goods usually are not exceptionally high in sodium, they do contain unhealthy refined salt (and other dietary no-no’s like partially hydrogenated oils, refined sugar, refined flour, and baking powder
made with aluminum). Health food stores sell goodies that are better on all these fronts: the desserts that are usually sold are made with sea salt, higher quality fats, fruit sweeteners or other natural sugars, and nonaluminum baking powder. Here’s a good example: two Nature’s Warehouse Whole Wheat Fig Newtons (cookies you can find in health food stores) contain only 40 milligrams of sodium, and they’re made with figs, whole wheat flour, fruit juice concentrates, nonhydrogenated canola oil, baking soda, and sea salt. By comparison, two Nabisco Fig Newtons contain 120 milligrams of sodium, and they’re made with enriched (refined) flour, preserved figs, three types of refined sugar, refined salt, corn flour, whey, baking soda, and artificial flavors. Always look for desserts that contain sea salt instead of table salt and that have the most natural ingredients you can find.
One to Two Salt Shakers.

381
Skip the instant chocolate pudding.
Hidden in quick-fix pudding mixes is a hard-to-believe amount of salt: one serving of Jell-O Instant Chocolate Pudding Mix contains 410 milligrams of sodium, and a serving size of Snack Well’s Instant Double Fudge Pudding Mix contains 440 milligrams of sodium. (What is so much salt doing in sweet pudding anyway?) If you occasionally like to treat yourself to pudding—and you want to make it in a jiffy—try this simple, wholesome pudding my staff helped me devise for this book. Not only does this recipe not contain the salt found in instant pudding mixes, but it also avoids other harmful ingredients often found in mixes—artificial flavors, artificial colors, and preservatives.
One Salt Shaker.

Blend the milk, Sucanat, cocoa powder, and arrowroot in a blender. When the ingredients are well blended, pour the mixture into a medium saucepan. Heat on high, stirring constantly, to prevent the milk from scalding. When the mixture begins to thicken, turn the heat to medium and heat, still stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of a pudding. Mix in the vanilla extract, then pour into 4 pudding dishes and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Cover and refrigerate for several hours. If desired, top with the almonds before serving.
Serves 4.

382
To help your body get the salt out, get the sugar out as much as possible.
According to nutritional expert Melvyn R. Werbach, M.D., sugar inhibits the body’s ability to clear excess sodium and water. This results in water retention, weight gain, abdominal bloating, and swelling of the face and extremities. Even low-sodium desserts such as ice cream, which is rich in sugar, should be avoided.

BONUS TIP:
If you need more incentive to get the sugar out of your diet, you should know that excessive sugar intake is linked to obesity, heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, and more than sixty other ailments. My book
Get the Sugar Out
explains in great detail sugars relationship to disease, and it also has lower-sugar recipes and 501 tips that will help you cut your sugar intake.