Let me advise you!  Cook your own meals – nothing ready made.  Do it all, prepare it all yourself – you choose the ingredients.  Nothing ready-made like instant religions.  There is no other way.  Packaged meals, fast foods - quick exit, full stop!  

My health has necessitated instant regime change – diets of mass destruction (DMD) were prevalent in abundance, easily located in all the bodily tissues and obvious to all discerning eyes – it did not need weapons inspectors to ferret them out.  There they were.  Goodbye cancerous kidney no 1 and as for kidney number 2 – bit of a disaster there – it is just pre-dialysis, so it has to be watched and waited on and diet is paramount.

Cut out all salts – save that which occurs naturally in food products (blood in meat tissues etc.)  No added salts either in cooking or on the table.  Instead - spices, lemons etc, herbs (plenty of them) and your food intake can be enjoyable – but you have to know how to cook; it takes time - it’s rather like being religious, it does not alas come too naturally to the all-too-mortal and ignorant soul; it has to be learned, even when time is precious.  

Too much salt means high blood pressure and kidneys do not really like to have to handle high blood pressure (they are rather like pets – they can’t always say what is wrong with them but they have a way of letting you know somehow): above all they want a quiet life, with things in moderation – they do not want a strictly and heavily,  ‘religious’ diet, rich in Dead Sea salts, just moderation in all things.  Moderation pays off and the younger you start, the better will you inevitably be.  No whole hogs!  But giddy youth does not always listen, does not always attend.  Age is always wiser - in hindsight.

Blood pressure!  Ah, for me that was too high.  They had already put me on three different blood pressure pills and thereafter I decided to cut out all the added salts.  Result: dizziness, almost fainting, scarcely able to stand up straight even after bending down every time to pick up what I thought could not but be that million dollar bill from the sidewalk (or million pound note from the pavement if you are not American).  They therefore had to reduce the dosage of blood pressure pills, cut one out completely and my blood pressure at present is perfect – has not been like that for ages – thanks to eliminating all those cruel and merciless, added salts.  No salt helps salvation and salvation is moderation in all things.

Salt is a killer; it is verily Satanic: savour it now and pay later.  Debts always accrue - always and they have to be paid even on the operating table, if not in the cemetery.

I rarely eat out nowadays simply because I cannot always control what goes into the food – perhaps once or twice a month I can succumb to a restaurant.  Savouries (generally too much sodium) are an absolute no-no.  Desserts are a must and are never declined (certainly not a knickerbocker glory).  Saying this however and following a regime thus, does not lead me to conclude that I shall live forever – the boredom would be hell.  There will come a time when the world will have to forgo the pleasure of my rare, if not unique, existence – but on that I do not grumble.  I eat but do not gorge; I relax but do not rest eternally.  And at present, even as I write, it is a glass of Muscadet (‘sur lie’, surely!)

Have I converted you?  Has my proselytising been succesfull?  If only........!  

If only Adam had listened!   

ACM

Adam--hi--good to see you here!

We were posting similar info at the same time.

Great minds...!

Jun 17, 2009 -- 1:16PM, IreneAdler wrote:

Good advice W Gal!

 

Forgot the other "baddie" to avoid- trans fats!  Not just found in fried foods but in many baked goods-which seem soooo innocent until one reads the label.  

 

Irene.

Irene--hi. Good to see you here!

You're right I did forget that.

Thanks so much for the reminder.

Hello, lovelies! This thread has been moved from Hot Topics Zone to the Health & Healing section, Food Issues & Body Image forum.

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I use sea salt too.  It is no longer that expensive.  Salt lasts me forever so it is no big deal.  I primarily use salt when I cook rice and pasta.  I cook the majority of my meals.  I do like McDonald's coffee and occasionally will have a chicken biscuit.  However, when my weight is heavy, I don't do that.