Yeah, is tough to cut sodium, especially while keeping flavor. If you're cooking at home, you might want to explore herbs--rosemary and thyme add a lot of flavor without sodium. Also pepper (red or black), citrus (lemon and lime, juice or zest) and cooking with wine add flavor. There are a number of no-salt spice combos by Mrs. Dash [link] I don't cook with them, but I've heard that others like them. There are also low sodium salts, usually substituting potassium, but I don't know how they'll fit your nutritional needs. [link] My parents used those briefly, but they always seemed to have a bit of an aftertaste to me.

If you're cooking at home

The thing is, if you are cooking at home, you are taking out a huge hit of sodium just with that one thing. It's not salt for flavor, it's sodium as a preservative and as a hidden ingredient. Depending on how much you are restricting, you can salt at home. It's the abuse of sodium that is often an issue, not just salt. Salt actually keeps us alive in smaller quantities.

shit. I was hoping your story began and ended with weed.

Probably would have had a more interesting night if it had!

yeah, I need to cook at home more. I'm so busy that this is hard to do.

le n, Penzeys is pricey but it has some delicious no salt seasonings. I love the one called Mural of Flavor. It's my go-to seasoning.

And, no, cooking at home isn't always easy. "Fast-ish" food is easy but troublesome. It is, however, easy. So it's a balancing act.

And, no, cooking at home isn't always easy.

A lot of what I cook at home centers around processed/packaged foods, like from Trader Joe's, for the very reason that cooking from scratch takes longer and is more involved. And so the tradeoff is all the sodium and other stuff that comes with processed food, even the "healthier" versions, like from TJs. (Of course, some of the stuff from TJs isn't healthy at all. But they do have some generally good stuff -- but still full of sodium.)

I'm showing my sister how to make ringtones on itunes, and I asked her what she wanted her ringtone to be when she called me. She played "I Hate Boys" by Christina Aguilera. I said, "That's what it is now!" And now when I call her, it's Ke$ha's "Blow."

Can't even tell you how happy that makes me.

TJ's mirepoix is my new true love! [link] Since I have lame knife skills and even lamer knives chopping is a big chunk of my cooking time. It probably actually saves me money because I only shop for me and can never use an entire thing of celery or carrots before they get floppy.

That's a lot of easy flavor. It has some salt because celery has a bit naturally, but not so much.

Hi. Back from conference. Downtown Dallas was strangely quiet. We were on the 38th floor of the Sheraton, and we all kept looking down and wondering, "where is everyone? did the apocalypse happen while we were huddled in a wifi-less room?" But then last night some of us went to Dallas Fish Market (omg yum) and there were living (allegedly) people about, so I guess everything comes back to life on the weekends.

I had iced tea flavored with cardamom! And it was delicious! I don't even know what cardamom is!

Why do they call them "bitters" if they aren't bitter?

Re diets etc., I agree with Trudy regarding Atkind/low-carb, and I agree with Ginger about the difficulty of following a true paleo/ancestral diet, and I agree with Connie Neil and Beverly about bras.

Debet, I'm sorry. It's so hard, even when you know it's right.