Once Cliff started recovering from heart surgery, I made it my job to figure out just how much sodium and cholesterol is considered too much.
For sodium guidelines, click HERE. And I see HERE that we should strive to keep consumption of cholesterol under 200 milligrams a day.
I do very well with the cholesterol limits, often staying under 150 milligrams, even.
The sodium is harder; I've compromised a bit, because I want to be realistic about it. Actually, none of the doctors has said a lot about salt to us; perhaps that goes back to their beliefs that nobody is going to follow their guidelines anyhow. If Cliff had kept going to his cardiac therapy sessions, they had a nutrition class during every session. But I'm sure I've gotten just as much information browsing the Internet as I'd have gotten at therapy with Cliff.
Anyhow, I like to keep sodium under 2,000 mgs for Cliff, and I believe our average probably is lower. On days when we eat out, I'm sure it rises. But on other days here at home, we have much less.
Sodium occurs naturally in some vegetables. For instance, an average raw tomato has 13 mg (click here). To me, that doesn't seem a big concern.
Something that makes me angry is this: General Mills advertises Cheerios as being "heart-healthy", and even the American Heart Association endorses them; but a small serving has 230 mg of sodium, only 30 grams less than the 31 Fritos I had with my taco salad last night! Oh, by the way, in hunting up all this information, I learned that Frito-Lay long ago removed trans-fats from their products. I hope a few others will follow their lead.
1 comment:
Lucky for me I do not have to worry about sodium.
As for decaf I do knoe of a way to decaf tea with out chemicals. It is a weaker colored tea but tastes the same.
For a cup of tea dunk your tea bag for 1 minute then pour that water out and then soak bag again in hot water for a few minutes.. The first cup of water has most of the caffine in it.
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