Health Article
Reducing your salt intake |
| By Regina Weedon Hi everyone. Hope you're busy cooking up a storm in your kitchen now the days are shorter and colder, this also helps to warm the house and make it smell mouth watering. It was great to get some feedback and someone has asked how to limit or reduce our salt intake while cooking. Some tips to what to look for when shopping is trying to stay away from pre packaged sauces or flavour sachets that come in a powder form. Even though some of these products claim to be 99% fat free they can be high in sugar or salt content to make up the flavour. I prefer to cook with fresh products to enhance the flavour of dishes. If cooking an Asian type food, instead of using salt, try using fish sauce which is a fermented sauce. You can also use soy sauce to add the salt/flavour. Use these sauces sparingly as the sauces may contain high sodium content (you can also find soy sauce with reduced sodium content). Use these in stock based soups, with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice and chopped fresh chilli and coriander leaves. Worcestershire sauce can also add great depth to a casserole instead of salt to bring up the flavour. Pre-packaged stock products are a handy, off the shelf product but can be high in sodium content. Always buy and use the salt reduced versions and then enhance with fresh flavours to add the extra flavour. Or use half stock half water as they can be quiet strong in flavour. When cooking desserts or using butter in cooking use unsalted butter or salt reduced butter. I choose not to use salt when making scones or cakes, I let the flavours speak for themselves or top them with something yummy like fresh strawberry sauce. Fresh herbs are in abundance and they make great flavour enhancers for many dishes including soups, stocks, casseroles, curries, dressings, oil infusions and the list can go on. Different herbs are available everywhere and most supermarkets are stocking most of the popular herbs these days so there are no excuses! Go out a grab a bunch and use them to create some great, smack in the face, awesome dishes that you can't wait to rip out another! Best of all herbs can be grown fresh at home in plant pots and picked fresh and ready to use straight into the dish from pot to pan... yum!!! So next time you go to the shops or go to cook a dish take note of the nutrition panel and check out the salt content and see if you can substitute it for something else. Then go to the fresh food section grab a hand full of fresh herbs and get cooking. Return to articles |
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