Tag Archives: Mayo Clinic

Sodium Shocker

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Low sodium pasta I cooked.

Sitting at a doctor’s office, I read about low-sodium diets. My first thought was, “who needs that? I eat healthy.” In fact, I never salt my food.

Then I read some more.

One of my go to foods is cottage cheese. I wrote about cottage cheese trending HERE.

When I got home, I looked at the label on my Trader Joe’s low fat cottage cheese and discovered 330 mg of sodium! Our Greek yogurt has a fraction of that.

Who knew?

Did you know that most pasta has 0 grams of sodium, but canned sauces are loaded? I made my own sauce with canned diced tomatoes (you have to look at the labels there, too. Some cans are packed with sodium while some are zero.) I sauteed onion, garlic — added hamburger, the canned tomatoes and threw in a bunch of chopped basil. Yum!

Some of my old favorites are off my list:

Top Ramen and White Cheddar Cheetos. One package of Top Ramen has 1590 mg of sodium. My “Simply Cheetos White Cheddar” have close to 300 mg in a serving. Somehow I don’t believe their serving size is that big…

I tried this low sodium kick for two weeks. I didn’t stick to it 100%, but I checked labels and tried other choices. After two weeks, I thought I deserved a treat.

I love the hot wings they have at our grocery store. They have six different flavors in a serve yourself wing bar. I picked out my favorites and took a bite once I got home.

Wow. It tasted like poison! It’s amazing how quickly your palate can change.

I found this at the doctor’s office:

It turns out that a low-sodium diet isn’t necessary for everyone. It’s good for those who have high blood pressure, heart disease and kidney disease. Low sodium diets may reduce cancer risk and improve our diets because most high sodium foods are not that good for us.

FYI, I made delicious cauliflower soup with my inversion blender. Yes, it’s more work than popping in a Stouffer’s or boiling Top Ramen but I feel good and I’m enjoying cooking.

The point of this exercise was I had no idea how much sodium I was eating. I was clueless thinking I was super healthy because I love veggies and salads. But sodium is hidden away in the strangest places.

Click HERE for a website I found from the Mayo Clinic for tasty low-sodium recipes.

Were you aware that cottage cheese is filled with sodium?

Do you care about what you eat and if it’s healthy or not? Why or why not?

The good old days of medicine

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A cord of firewood. Photo from Van Beek’s.

I was thinking about how convoluted and expensive healthcare is these days. It wasn’t always like that.

When I grew up in a rural town in Washington state, I don’t remember people worried about their healthcare. People could pay out of pocket to see their doctor or dentist.

My dad was one of about four dentists in town. We would get unexpected gifts for payment for a filling or root canal. Once a patient drove his pickup truck to our house and unloaded a cord of firewood. Other times, we’d get fresh lamb, veggies or eggs. He also got ridiculously small monthly payments of $2 to $10.

My dad’s office had two dentists and two doctors. The doctors treated our family for free and my dad did the same for the doctors’ families.

I went off to the University of Washington and I went on the school insurance. It was peanuts.

When my husband and I were starting our family, we had excellent insurance. The company my husband was employed by was self-insured. There was a sliding scale for monthly premiums based on income. We could go to any doctor with a small copay. Premiums and deductibles were low. Having babies didn’t bankrupt us.

Today premiums are high. We’re lucky to have insurance through my husband’s employer though, so we are subsidized.

We tried to get a primary care physicians at a well known medical center, the Mayo Clinic. Unfortunately they have a three-year waiting list and refused to add us to it. I wonder if they’ve always been like that? Or is it the recent influx of Californians moving into Arizona? Everyone is looking for a doctor.

Finding a doctor who takes new patients and we can get an appointment quickly isn’t easy. Not to mention the costs.

What do you remember about healthcare when you were growing up? Why do you think insurance and costs have changed so much?