Since I became a renal patient four years ago I have changed my way of eating gradually. Excess salt was the first to go out of my diet, keeping a check on the amount of protein I eat and making sure I eat enough vegetables. It’s not always easy keeping all those things in account and occasionally I forget all those.
But being obligated to really look at what I eat has inspired me more to delve deeper in cooking. Always when finding recipes online or in books I change them removing and replacing the less healthy ingredients. For example I never add salt when cooking because a lot of products already have salt, like canned tomatoes, cheese, canned tuna, etc. When using butter I use unsalted butter but 90% of the time I use olive oil to cook.
Eating this way requires frequent trips to the grocery each week, also more expenses. Buying everything fresh costs way more then buying canned vegetables or frozen products. Buying fresh fish at the fish market isn’t the cheapest either. But eating healthy(and delicious) is a must so it’s not like it’s wasted money.
In any case having to watch out what I eat has stimulated me to try more different kind of food, I now like mussels and clams. Years ago I wouldn’t even tried them.
And I’m convinced that keeping salt to a minimum amount in your diet is better for your taste of food. After adjusting to less salt you start to taste more of the food, different spices and so on. I never put salt while cooking pasta and rice. And me this amateur cook, who never took a cooking class will tell chefs like Jamie Oliver who always focuses on putting salt in pasta, don’t do it! I did it months ago to see the difference and pasta with no salt tastes much better, especially if you use good quality pasta.
It’s just a matter of losing the excessive use of salt habit. Just give it at try, go by seven days without putting salt in the food. And start using more fresh spices, think about rosemary, thyme, coriander, basil, garlic, etc.
In the picture above you can see my usual grocery shopping. Note the Uncle Ben’s Rice Express. It’s pre cooked rice with Mexican flavors. Normally I don’t buy anything pre cooked or with added spices. But it was already past 6 o’clock and I was too hungry for cooking more then 30 minutes. I ate that rice with Goya black beans with Goya Sazon seasoning. The Sazon spices are low on salt and in small bags to use one at a time.
This was dinner the day I did those grocery. It tasted nice, although the rice was too salty for my taste. Just to show that processed food contains more then enough salt so adding more to your food is a big no no.