Saturday, July 14, 2012

Why is so much low sodium food not available in no High Fructose Corn Surup?

Having gone on this low sodium diet, it has really started to annoy me to see how so many products seem to replace low sodium with high fructose corn syrup. Personally if I want low sodium, I don't want High Fructose Corn Syrup.
A great example is Heinz Ketchup. Kelly and I had gotten used to the excellent Reduced Sugar Heinz (which has not high fructose Corn Syrup). It not so sweet, and is quite good.
HeinzReducedSugar
Now after my surgery I have had to move to the No Salt Heinz, but it is again super sweet, as it has high fructose corns syrup. I love that it has no salt, but can't they combine the two?
HeinzNoSalt

And so many low fat or heart healthy foods also have so much high fructose corn syrup. Do they use the sugar to cover the chemicals they put in? Well I would rather have more vinegar, or something natural! Sweet is not the answer!

Northridge Fish & Chips, Northridge, CA

10336 Reseda Blvd.
Northridge, CA 91326
(818) 360-3474

This certainly should not be on my Low Sodium Diet, but Kelly was sick and wanted Fish & Chips, so I ventured out, after seeing that it had good reviews on Yelp.
Located in a little strip mall on the east side of Reseda just north of Devonshire, this is not a place where you want to eat. It is pretty dingy, and has only a few tables, this place is for takeout.
Owned and operated by an old Asian Couple, they do make amazing Fish and Chips. It has a simple menu including also deep fried shrimp, oysters, clams and calamari, but I was there for the very inexpensive Fish and chips.
The pieces of fish are quite large, and the fish quite tasty. I got a 3 piece and got Kelly a 2 piece and with a bottle of Malt vinegar, it was around $17! Quite a deal! In fact a a 2 piece if under $5! Wow.
I was actually qutie impressed. The fish is big and tasty, and the fries were good without being too salty.
And they make it all to order, nothing is sitting around, so it might take a little while (not too long at most 15 minutes), but if you are close you could call your order in and come in to pick it.
This place was pretty damn tasty, and I will certainly eat it again.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Breville BBM800XL The Custom Loaf Breadmaker

BrevilleBreadmaker

After realizing just how much sodium is in basically every commercial bread you can buy, we decided to get a breadmaker so we could make no sodium bread. Of course I wanted a Breville as their blender and toaster we have are the best I have ever seen! And of course their $250 Bread Machine is no exception!

The BRM800XL Custom Loaf if a kick ass which makes bread making as easy as can be. You can even put in spices or nuts or fruit and it adds them at the proper time while making the dough for proper distribution.

The bread is light and fluffy and quite tasty, even without sodium (though the plain french bread recipe I have from the 500 Low Sodium Recipes book could use some salt, but when I added some fresh basil and rosemary it became perfect).

In about 3 and a half hours you have a fully cooked loaf of bread, and can even set it up and set it on a timer, so you can wake up to fresh bread!

Honestly this thing is great, and far easier than I ever would have expected. Sure the bread can be a little flaky at times, but I need to try different recipes (looking forward to making sourdough) and even using it to make dough for pizza or bagels (which are very high in sodium).

500 Low Sodium Recipes by Dick Logue

500LowSodiumRecipes

My favorite new cookbook is 500 Low Sodium Recipes: Lose the Salt not the Flavor in Meals the whole Family will Love by Dick Logue. It is an easy read, and has some really great recipes that taste great.

I have been very impressed with the no sodium soy sauce alternative, and have been using the no salt bread making recipes with my new breadmaker (they are great, though of course could use a tad of salt for flavor).

He has some really delicious recipes and writes in a great style. This really is a must have low sodium cookbook! Very heart healthy.

Heart Surgery and Low Sodium Diet

Had my heart surgery, and you can read about it at the front of this site at JonahLee.com and click on Surgery. I am 6 weeks out and doing very well.

Have been put on a low sodium diet following the surgery, and I can't believe how hard it is. Amazing how much salt is in everything at the grocery store. Had to get some low sodium cook books and have had to basically stop eating out for the time being (though I want nothing more than a Reuben from Brent's).

Will be blogging about some new kitchen appliances, new stores I have found and cookbooks I am using to keep a low sodium diet, with a category of Low Sodium.

Interestingly though my chiropractor is against the low sodium diet (and want met to eat egg yolks which isn't great for my cholesterol), though if the at home cholesterol kit is right my cholesterol has dropped from 315 to 168! That is a huge change, and obviously the beta blocker and calcium blocker was part of that!

Moved Food Blog from Whale of a Tale to Jonahlee

Have run my two blogs in there own Wordpress installs for years at Whale of a Tale, but with a recent update I stopped being able to run both blogs that way, and since I was having so many issues I moved my Restaurants Reviews blog to Blogger and decided I might as well move it to my JonahLee.com site, since it makes more sense being here than at my Whale of a Tale business site (and I might do the same with my movies blog, though that would be a lot harder since it has a lot more entries and might not make the transition quite so easily).

All the entries are still here (though there may be some translation mistakes, so let me know if you see any).

Likely going to be focusing more on Low Sodium dishes since that is what I have to eat for a while following my open heart surgery.