My grandpa was just diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure so he’s going to have to switch to a low/no sodium diet. There’s a couple of catches, though. He’s 83, has Alzheimer’s disease, and had a large part of his stomach removed when he was young so he can’t eat many foods (anything spicy, tomato based products, any kind of leafy green) because they hurt his stomach.
I’m kind of at a loss as what to fix for them when I see what he can’t eat.
Any suggestions?
I think what has me particularly stumped is how I would go about serving rice,pasta, or potatoes without the traditional accompaniments of cheese, salt, butter, or tomato sauce. Please help me think outside the box.
Thanks
My first thought was making a sauce based on broth - low sodium chicken or vegetable (homemade if you can, but the store should have some acceptable options if you read the labels carefully).
You can use something like this recipeas a base to work from, swapping out problematic items (less or no cheese, a different vegetable if asparagus won’t work. Green peas might be nice).
Most food manufacturers’ idea of “low-sodium” is laughable. These products still contain way more sodium than someone like your grandfather can have.
Check out megaheart.com. This guy has published a couple of books that truly cut the salt out of cooking. I used it for about a year after I was diagnosed with high blood pressure - during that time I had my sodium intake down to about 800-1000 mg per day.
Rice is an easy one. Make a basic sofrito with olive oil and veggies then saute the rice and simmer in no sodium stock/broth. You’ll have to use care when reading the stock package since “low” sodium is extremely relative, but rice will be easy to make in a variety of flavors for his diet.
Fish steamed with lemon slices and fresh herbs is a classic preparation. Pasta will be a bit tougher but capers, mushrooms, a bit of butter/olive oil and white wine can make a pretty nice sauce. Also chicken vesuvio is a good pasta/potato preparation that can be made light on salt and butter.
Roasted potatoes, onions and carrots is always a classic. Without salt and butter you’re going to need to start incorporating a ton of fresh and dried herbs and spices into your cooking. Rosemary, thyme, dill, cilantro etc.
The Mayo Clinichas a lot of low-salt recipes, as does the Mrs. Dash company site and Good Housekeeping. You’ll also be able to tailor things to his specific favorites by plugging the following into Google:
low salt recipe {specific item he likes}
For example, if he likes tuna salad, putting “low salt recipe tuna salad” into Google turns up several options where the recipe has been fine-tuned.
Thanks for the ideas. I went with some real basics this week at the store. I’ll come back and revisit this thread before our next shopping trip.
when I had some issues with my kidneys earlier in the year I had to drastically cut my sodium intake for several months. we pretty much just stopped eating anything out of a box or can and searched out all the no-sodium varieties of other items; we also started ordering stuff in bulk from these guys: http://healthyheartmarket.com/ (the pickles in particular)