Most diets and diet cookbooks spend a lot of time and energy creating sweets to eat instead of the things you shouldn’t eat a bunch of, particularly if you’re trying to lose the lard.
I have a complaint – it seems that almost NO time is spent on the salty food group. They only say, “avoid,” or “don’t eat.” When time is spent producing a food that might satisfy the ‘crunchy food group,’ it doesn’t include SALT.
I can avoid sweets. I can avoid white, starchy food. I can avoid sugar. I can watch my portions. I can avoid added salt, but the essentially salty food group CALLS to me.
I have a raw veggie tray in my fridge right now. It’s beautiful, with carrots, broccoli. snap beans, cherry tomatoes, and cauliflower, all ready to chomp with even a dip included.
What do I crave? Pretzels. Fritos. Potato chips.
________________
Healthy Alternatives to Salty Snacks
- Nuts and Seeds. Adding unsalted nuts and seeds to your diet in moderation can be a great way to combat your salty cravings. …
- Kale Chips. You don’t have to deprive yourself of the crunchy, salty goodness of potato chips, just try using kale instead. …
- Edamame. …
- Hummus. …
- Popcorn.
18 Flavorful Salt Alternatives
- Garlic. Garlic is a pungent spice that boosts flavor without increasing sodium content. …
- Lemon juice or zest. …
- Ground black pepper. …
- Dill. …
- Dried onion or onion powder. …
- Nutritional yeast. …
- Balsamic vinegar. …
- Smoked paprika.
- _______________________________
All this is lovely, but it just DOESN’T take the place of a nice salty pretzel, or a bunch of fritos, or potato chips…
My good friend and I were talking about cravings the other day, and we came up with a new meme –
‘SPLURGE IN MODERATION.’ Think it’ll catch on?
I love specific things with salt freshly ground over them. Like chips or tomatoes. Or just certain dishes. I guess that’s the added salt part then.
But I cook most food myself and eat very little pre-prepared food and I often use other foods to add the flavour as you suggested. So I get away with those few added salty bits. (My blood tests always show my salt levels to be pretty low).
I like quite a lot of different foods and love cooking (and eating) but I keep getting derailed.
First it was a peanut allergy in my 20’s. I ate quite a lot of peanuts at the time so it felt like such a loss. Then in my 30’s I stopped being able to eat all wholemeal products, and peppers. In my mid 40’s I became allergic to kiwi, all other nuts and coconut. I didn’t like kiwi so much so that was no real loss. But I was pretty nuts about nuts!
Right before my 50th birthday I got the news I’m now both lactose and fructose intolerant! I’m still a little shell shocked really!!
It seems my body just wants me to eat unhealthy stuff! At least there are now a lot of lactose free products but fructose will be difficult. I didn’t think it was in much at first, but apparently it’s all over the place!!
It’s bonkers. I started out with this love of healthy food and a rich and varied diet. And now I need to see a nutritionist.
Splurge in moderation sounds perfect to me!!
I’m glad you like our new meme. :0) I’m sorry about what you’ve had to give up. It seems everything gets more complicated as we age. You’re just a baby at 50. I hope things settle down so that you can enjoy cooking again, even with the changes. Take care.
Thank you!! Very true. I’m sure the nutritionist will be able to help me. Hopefully she won’t preach give up salty stuff 🙂