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.
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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?
creativeartworksblog 
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!!
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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.
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Thank you!! Very true. I’m sure the nutritionist will be able to help me. Hopefully she won’t preach give up salty stuff 🙂
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