Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Sparkpeople

Sparkpeople.com has been the greatest aid to my nutrition awareness.  Although it's primarily a free website to help folks lose weight, it's been the one way for me to track how much sodium, calcium, fiber, and other nutrients we're getting each day.  It gives recommendations on amounts, and I try to keep in their ranges.

I don't use Ragu or Prego these days because of the sodium content.  I use the Better Homes and Gardens spaghetti sauce recipe, using no-salt-added tomatoes and tomato paste, and not adding additional salt.  So that recipe, with nutrients (as listed in the cookbook), is typed into Sparkpeople.  So I'm listing exactly the spaghetti that we use, when I enter it.  I have to adjust the nutrients given by the cookbook, since I'm using no-salt ingredients.  It takes some brainwork and figuring, but I believe I have it pretty close to right.

Thanks to Sparkpeople, I was made aware that we weren't getting even ten percent of the calcium we need per day, and I added a calcium pill to our daily regimen.  We usually do fairly well getting enough fiber, but toward the end of the day if I see I'm lacking in fiber for that day, I'll eat a raw carrot or two and perhaps mix up a glass of Metamucil and drink it.

Thank you, sparkpeople!

Monday, April 2, 2007

I'm not as by-the-book as I was at the start

I can honestly say that we keep our cholesterol intake well below the limit.  It's easy to do if you limit meat to 4-ounce servings, and have very few egg yolks.   We don't drink much milk, but what we use is non-fat.  We both take a calcium pill because we get so little calcium in our food.  Once in a blue moon we'll have Pizza Hut pizza.

If we only ate at home, sodium would never be a problem for me; Cliff does go somewhat over because he loves Ritz lower-sodium crackers and vanilla wafers; not that many, but the sodium in those adds up.  Eating out is the number one way to take in a ton of salt.  When we split a meal, that, of course, cuts the sodium intake in half.  But I'm sure there's still far too much.

I'm still buying no-salt-added tomatoes, ketchup, tomato sauce and tomato paste; read those labels, it's unbelievable how much salt they pack into tomato stuff.  Cliff gets spaghetti almost once a week (his favorite), and the only salt in the sauce comes from the half-pound of Italian sausage I put in it, which gives each serving about two ounces of sausage.

My ideas on caffeine have changed.  Since the medical community can't make up their collective minds whether coffee is good or bad for us, and after talking to Cliff's doctor, I don't buy decaff coffee any more.  I still buy decaffeinated tea and Diet Coke, so the only caffeine Cliff gets is in the five or so cups of coffee he drinks each day (three in the morning, two at noon).