Our Journey to Lower Sodium: How We Found a Healthy Salt Solution with Redmond’s Real Salt
Kody Hanner
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Our Journey to Lower Sodium: How We Found a Healthy Salt Solution wit Redmond's Real Salt
Eight years ago, my husband was diagnosed with end-stage liver disease, and we were immediately hit with the harsh realities of salt (or, I say, sodium). Liver disease patients often need to limit or eliminate their salt intake, mainly for the water retention issues that it can cause. In my husband’s case, we had to limit his sodium (NaCl) intake to 1200 mg a day.
The challenging thing about treating, healing, or maintaining a liver disease is that there is little that can be done medically for liver disease (at least on a medication basis) until the late decomposition of the disease. The main or only treatment is through diet and lifestyle changes. If you aren’t compliant with your doctor’s recommendations, you could be ineligible for a liver transplant should you get to that point in your progression.
We quickly found that many foods, both packaged and fresh (like saline-injected chicken meat) were loaded with sodium to the point my husband was limited to very few allowable foods that had traditionally been in our diets (even many “healthy” foods).
As an experiment, I suggest you add up the sodium in your daily diet and see how fast you reach the daily recommended amount.
We started all wrong in avoiding sodium. We began trying to control our sodium by eliminating flavor on our meats and other finished foods rather than focusing on removing the sodium based preservatives in canned foods like vegetables and broth. We tried heavily seasoning foods with herbs and spices or salt-free blends like Mrs Dashes, which contain potassium salts. Our food was bland and unenjoyable.
In an effort to remove processed and salt-filled foods from our diet, we decided to start canning many of our own foods. I was quickly discouraged to find that large quantities of salt were still required when producing our own foods. How were we ever going to escape this looming cloud of sodium intake that seemed to follow us into every eating style? We had a few options, like raising our own meat to avoid saline injections, but at that time, the quantity we needed seemed extreme.
Then, at one of my husband’s doctor’s appointments, I was exhausted by trying to recreate and preserve every meal for a family of 8. I expressed my frustrations to her, and she said a few things that changed our trajectory. Firstly, she said that she was on board for whole milk. Thank goodness. Because even before we bought a cow, skim milk tasted like bleach and never felt like a healthy option.
Then we got on the subject of salt. She essentially said to me that if we were to make the majority of our food from scratch, even with reasonable salt, we would be hard-pressed to reach the allowed sodium levels with a salt shaker. And that I didn’t have to use all the recommended salt in many canning recipes but to confirm each one. However, we should consider sea salt.
What?!?
This was a game-changer! We immediately started looking at ways to cook and preserve our foods completely with the lowest amount of salt possible, then seasoning to taste afterward. We switched to sea salt, but soon, that gravy train came to a halt as well! We came across an article, then a podcast, and then found more proof that many sea salts were extracted from places like the San Francisco Bay! I don’t know if you have ever been to that area, but the water is foul!!! When we had been cutting out bad foods, toxins, chemicals, and everything else from our lives, there was no way I was going to serve our family crystalized bay sludge.
That is when we learned about Redmond’s Real Salt. This salt is mined from an ancient sea bed in Utah, and the company has been a trusted livestock salt and mineral supplement for decades! The salt is packed with extra minerals and has a flavor that is unlike any other. In switching to this salt (that is only 2120mg of sodium per tsp instead of 2325mg like other brands), I could usually use ½ – ⅔ the amount of salt I had previously used in recipes due to its robust flavor.
Redmond’s also has amazing other products like electrolytes and seasoned salts that we use exclusively at this point. We also can buy their standard salt in bulk quantities so that we can use it for canning, curing, making sourdough, and everything in between!
After sharing our story with Redmond’s Real Salt, they have provided us with a 10% discount for you to try their products as well! Use code HOMESTEADEDUCATION