Heart Healthy Diet

Today, only by luck, I consumed a low salt and low fat diet, which is not necessarily normal for me. I love the taste of salt, and prefer it over the flavor of sugar, so I do find myself searching out snacks and foods on the savory-salty side when given a choice. Today I consumed a scrambled egg/tofu/zucchini breakfast with a side of potatoes. In order to check my salt intake first, I used the www.heart.org website to evaluate my breakfast and used their sodium tracker form. The scramble had 105 mg of sodium. If I had used a salt substitute, it would have been 75mg. The potatoes I prepared had four shakes of the salt shaker=40 mg of salt. For lunch I had a salad with salad dressing. The label indicates another 30mg of sodium, plus www.fatsecret.com indicates 16mg of sodium from the salad itself.. For a snack I had 3 cookies at 150mg of sodium each.Since I plan to have the same salad for dinner, my total sodium for the day would be 1787mg of sodium, under the recommended maximum amount of 2,000mg/day. This is fortunate since I try hard to keep my sodium intake as low as possible. I also looked into my fat consumption. The recommended allowance is 78 grams of fat per day. I came in at 55 grams, even including my cookies! If I were to try and reduce these numbers, I would first try to educate myself in finding healthy alternative substitutes. In the past I have enjoyed using different spices and herbs, and for the fat substituting healthy fats (coconut, olive oil) for bad ones. If I were to make cookies, I could also substitute apple sauce for the fat. This option actually tastes good! I think these kinds of adjustments are ok as I like to experiment with ingredients, but if I were to eat out more often or if someone else cooked, I would probably be in trouble. To monitor one’s sodium and fat intake, it takes diligence and awareness to track amounts and to adjust accordingly. At least it looks like I am on the right track, however too bad I like smoked salmon so much. From hereon I will need to be more conscious of how much I consume of it, as it is full of sodium. Maybe preparing smoked salmon myself from fresh salmon and liquid smoke would be better, and eliminate the sodium.

Sodium Content                    Fat Content

Scramble w/coconut oil:                          105mg                                   7g

Potatoes w/coconut oil:                             40mg                                 14g

Salad Dressing (x2):                                   60mg                                   14g

Salad (x2):                                                    32mg                                   n/a

Smoked Salmon (in Salad x2):              1100mg                                  5 g

Cookies:                                                     450mg                                   15 g

TOTAL:                                                      1787mg                                  55g