Reading Labels to watch Salt and discovered I was reading them wrong.......Are you reading them better?

As many of you may know I have been putting in a better effort to lower my salt intake.  The FDA recommends 2 to 2 1/2 grams ( 2000 to 2500 mg ) of salt (or sodium) a day.  I've been trying real hard to stay below that as well as help my family stay below that as well.

Before I got on this kick, I had purchased some things that are not on board with my new lifestyle. Not many items but one in particular was a bowl of Japanese Udon Noodles.  I don't get into a habit of buying stuff like this but thought it might be good for something hot and filling and real easy to make.  So after I said Sayonara to sodium, I looked at that label and was shocked.  Take a look at the sodium count

No your not misreading.  It does say 1520 mg.   click the photo to make it bigger.  You'll see it.  That is almost a full day of salt in one bowl of noodle soup.  Why I didn't throw it away right then and there I don't know.  But I kept it in the pantry.

When shopping at Trader Joe's I came across some of these noodle bowls which looked smaller and I looked at the label and thought these were not great but better than the big bowl I had in my pantry.  So I bought some.  Look at the difference in the sizes.

Packaging plays a huge part here.  The bowl on the right looks huge compared to when you remove the bowl from it's packaging on the left.   Anita pulled the bowl on the left out of the pantry and I told her to take the one on the right and throw it away because it was high in sodium.  She looked at it and was as shocked as I was when she saw that 1520 number.  She looked at the smaller bowl and said, like I did, not great but better  than the other one.  But then she looked closer.   She said did you know that the smaller bowl contains two servings where as the bigger bowl contains one.  Here is the label for the smaller bowl

It has 970 mg of sodium for each serving.  Times two that is 1940 mg.  almost a whole days worth of salt in one small bowl.  Take another look at the serving size on top.  The big bowl is 221 grams in a serving and the smaller bowl has 85 grams for serving, 170 grams total.

So in this situation, the smaller bowl of soup was actually worse than the bigger bowl.  One thing that I know I won't buy anymore are these quick fix bowls.  I think I'll make my own and freeze it for my quick fix.

I have heard that the FDA is now talking about changing the way manufacturers make their labels so it clearly states what the entire portion contains.  For example, an idiot like me won't have to worry about looking at the label and seeing that the small bowl actually contains two servings vs. one.

I hope that this has helped you to look closer at labels as it has for me.

The Start of the Low Sodium Life....A wake up call.....And hey look, there's Fish

So I went for a physical this week because earlier in the week my body was talking to me.  My body wasn't saying good things either.  It was saying, your grossly overweight and you use too much salt.  So if you can't see that on your own, i'm going to make your heart beat to the theme of Hawaii Five-O.

Well as you can imagine I heard the music.  Went to see the doctor and got a few x-rays and some blood work. I don't know what the blood will tell me but I know it won't be smiling.  So that was it.  I had gotten back on the exercise routine a few weeks ago so I knew I had to continue that.  But the real issue for me is Salt and portion control.  As you know from reading, I like food a little too much.  Even my doctor said that having this blog is a bad idea.  But I find writing it to be therapeutic and now that I have to change my eating habits a bit, I could use all the therapy I can get.

So the Doctor said to me since I know how to cook, I should know how to cook without salt. Truth is I really don't.  Every thing I read and watch, everyone seasons everything with salt and pepper.  Everything!!!   So I have to be clever with flavor because I like my food to be full flavored.

So last night I decided to try to cook without salt.  I went to the market and got two pieces of Captains cut Cod.  I like the Captains cut because it's a meatier cut and it's mostly the same size all the way through.  So that allows it to cook evenly.  Regular Cod is equally delicious but sometimes I find that you need to cook it so the thicker part is fully cooked and that in turn dries out the thinner parts.

So I started out with about 1/4 cup of minced Shallots and about 6 cloves of garlic that were rough chopped.
I sauteed them till they were fragrant and they were soft. I took it off the heat and let it cool a little bit.  I added about 1/2 a tsp. of oregano to the mixture as it cooled.

I then placed the fish into a casserole dish and turned up the oven to 400 degrees.  I put some olive oil on the fish to coat it.  Now from the photo it may seem like a lot but it was less than I usually put so it was a step in the right direction.

I then took the cooled shallot/garlic mixture and coated the top of the fish and then sprinkled some red pepper flakes on top.

I baked it for 10 minutes until the tops got a little brown and the fish started to flake, and also till the kitchen smoke went away from something I guess I had cooked earlier that spilled on the bottom on became ash.

Overall the taste was very good.  Could it have used some salt?  Of course it could have.  But that will be my job to figure out how to tweak it just a little bit more to get the full rounded out flavor that personally I need.  

This dish was finished with some steamed brocolli so all in all it was a very healthy meal.  And a step in the right direction.

Now the real trick is to see how I do tonight when I go out to dinner with my friends.  We are going out for Thai so I have to really be careful.

Please don't yell at me me when you read my review on it.