Get the Salt Out (45 page)

Leave the garlic bulb intact and place it in a shallow baking dish. Bake at 300 degrees for 40 minutes, or until the garlic is tender. Remove the bulb from the oven when done and let it stand for a few minutes to cool slightly. Slice the bulb crosswise in half and let each dinner guest separate a clove from the bulb and squeeze the mushy garlic from its skin onto a piece of whole grain bread. The garlic can be spread with a knife as easily as butter.
Serves 8.

BONUS TIP:
Try using roasted garlic in other ways. Add a few cloves to soups or stews, or try it in mashed potatoes!

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Use onions liberally: like garlic, they make flavorful additions to just about any meal and are believed to have similar health benefits (including the ability to lower high blood pressure). Branch out and start experimenting with onions flavorful relatives—scallions, chives, leeks, and shallots. Chopped chives and scallions (or green onions) not only garnish baked potatoes well, they also make tasteful additions to virtually any lettuce or grain salad or salad dressing. Although leeks and shallots are not as well known in this country as other members of
the onion family, they, too, lend distinctive flavors to foods as an alternative to using salt. Try shallots or sliced leeks in soups and stews, or sautéed with other vegetables.
One Salt Shaker.

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The Latin root of the word
sauce
is salt.
Knowing this, you probably aren’t surprised that sauces are pretty much synonymous with salt. If you avoid commercial sauces altogether, you can take a major step toward reducing salt in your diet, but entrees without sauces sometimes can be dry and boring. This section will show you that delicious sauces can be made with little salt, and believe it or not, sometimes with no salt.

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Sugar and salt often go hand in hand in sauces.
When they’re together, they often “cancel each other out,” fooling your taste buds into believing you’re not eating much of either. Processed foods are problematic for exactly this reason: they’re high sources of sugar and salt, yet many people don’t even realize it. Consequently, a good way to cut down your salt intake is to reduce your sugar intake. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has reported that when sugar is eliminated in foods, the amount of salt needed to satisfy taste drops dramatically. To help you avoid sugar (which, in turn, will help you cut down on salt), try to buy sauces that contain 5 grams of sugar or less per serving.

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Don’t use salty sauces to “cover up” the taste of processed foods or poor-quality foods.
Sauces should only be used to accentuate the flavor of whole-food entrees and side dishes, not to mask foods you would rather not eat.

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Discover low-sodium sauces that don’t contain refined salt, refined sugar, or preservatives.
Robbie’s is one line to look for. This company not only makes low-sodium Worcestershire sauce (see tip 227), but other handy and flavorful condiments like garlic sauce and barbecue sauce. Ask for this quality brand in health food stores.
One Salt Shaker.

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Even lower in sodium—in fact, sodium-free—
are the sauces under the Mr. Spice label. They are the most helpful condiments I know of for individuals who need to be on low-sodium diets. “Mr. Spice” himself, David Lang, is an herbalist who has been able to use his knowledge of herbs and natural foods to create sauces that have great flavor without any salt, sodium, refined sugar, MSG, or preservatives. In addition, except for his low-fat Thai Peanut Sauce, all of his sauces are fat-free. During the past several years, all nine varieties of Mr. Spice sauces have won Blue Ribbon Awards (ranking in the top ten of their respective categories) at the annual American Royal International Barbecue Sauce Contest. This means that judges in blind taste tests put Mr. Spice sauces at the top of their classes, ahead of countless other sauces that contained refined salt and other unwanted ingredients. Mr. Spice sauces can be found in most natural food and specialty stores and some supermarkets. They come in these tasty varieties: the original Tangy Bang!; Garlic Steak Sauce; Honey BBQ Sauce; Ginger Stir Fry Sauce; Thai Peanut Sauce; Honey Mustard Sauce; Sweet & Sour Sauce; Indian Curry Sauce; and Hot Wing! Sauce.
One Salt Shaker.

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What makes tomato sauce the classic Italian pasta sauce?
Plenty of garlic, onions, and fresh herbs. The secret of good Italian sauces certainly isn’t the refined salt that is predominant in commercial spaghetti sauces. (The salt content is so high in pasta sauces that a half cup of most commercial brands supplies almost one-quarter of our daily recommended sodium allowance.) Here’s a low-sodium tomato sauce recipe
that is
real
Italian. It was developed by my staff and works well on grains, whole grain pasta, or cooked vegetables.
One Salt Shaker.