salt

[brandy]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to this site :-) 

I've struggled with my weight since adolescence (I'm turning 38 this year).  I've been following the caveman diet and it's feeling great!  It feels like what my body has always wanted.  I'm already losing weight - I've always carried it around my middle like a big spare tire - and my waist is getting smaller. 

I've been reading different sites on this way of eating (paleo, caveman, even Eat Right For Your Blood Type - I'm an O, which is the original blood type - just like the caveman). 

I have a couple of questions:

1.  I noticed on one post that it was thought to be okay to add brown rice in later stages of the diet.  My problem is that I tend to overeat rice, so I think I would like to just eliminate it from my diet altogether.  Will I be missing out nutritionally if I do this?

2.  Salt - I love it - and I just bought some great curry pastes that are all natural, except that they do contain salt.  Sites like the one by Cordain (Paleo Diet) say to stay totally away from it.  Can anyone tell me their experiences with salt - and whether salt really is a no-no?  One good thing:  I have found that dulse flakes (seaweed) add a great salt-like flavor without all the sodium.  But I do love these curry pastes - as well as some great un-sweetened, but highly salted fish sauce I recently bought.  Do I really have to give salt up for optimum health?  If the answer is yes, I'll do it.

I'm very focused on creating the best health possible.  I've had troubles in the past few years with IBS, carpal tunnel, joint stiffness (my mother & grandmother both had arthritis and I don't want it too).  I want to feel that healthy aliveness I felt when I was 12 - and I'm determined to get there.  By the way, I love weight-lifting.  So if that's the ideal exercise for a cave girl, I'm happy!  Love dancing too though :-)

Brandy

[Seeker]

Hi Brandy and welcome to the site. I hope you find it to be as valuable a resource as I have.

Let's get to your questions shall we?

1.  I noticed on one post that it was thought to be okay to add brown rice in later stages of the diet.  My problem is that I tend to overeat rice, so I think I would like to just eliminate it from my diet altogether.  Will I be missing out nutritionally if I do this?

If you eat a well balanced diet with a lot of fresh fruit, vegetables and meat/fish you won't be missing out at all nutritionally if you don't have rice. In fact, if most people gave up their excessive rice and breads intake in favour of more fresh raw fruit and vegetables they would be a LOT healthier for it.

2.  Salt - I love it - and I just bought some great curry pastes that are all natural, except that they do contain salt.  Sites like the one by Cordain (Paleo Diet) say to stay totally away from it.  Can anyone tell me their experiences with salt - and whether salt really is a no-no?  One good thing:  I have found that dulse flakes (seaweed) add a great salt-like flavor without all the sodium.  But I do love these curry pastes - as well as some great un-sweetened, but highly salted fish sauce I recently bought.  Do I really have to give salt up for optimum health?  If the answer is yes, I'll do it.

Unfortunately I can't give as straight forward an answer to this one. I think there is some merit in salt in the diet and I do indeed find myself craving it a little after a hard days work in the yard with a lot of sweating, which as you may know leeches salts and minerals out of your body. It's also interesting to note that animals naturally will lick salt in the wild sometimes. Ever seen a horse get stuck into a salt lick or had a dog lick your sweaty leg with great enthusiasm?

It's a fact we do need salt, but in our modern processed goods world we are getting many multiple times the doses needed, which is indeed bad for your health. In fact the amounts we need are so small that it's almost a certainty you are getting it from your diet no matter what you choose to eat. My wife and I like to have a pinch of salt in a glass of water after a particularly hot and sweaty day in the garden. Also we do add a small amount to some cooking. The salt we use is pure sea salt from a reputable company. We try to avoid any and all packaged goods, which by default means you will be avoiding the huge quantities of salt that is crammed into most things these days.

Hope that gives you some ideas to help. And again, welcome aboard!

[Matt Emery]

Welcome aboard Brandy 

I'm thrilled that your finding success with the Paleo way of eating.

Seeker is right, you need those electrolytes!  Don't go on a low salt diet, it's unnatural and it can lead to cramps, dizziness and other problems.

And again, you can omit rice completely if you like, you won't need it if you're consuming vegetables - you'll get enough Vitamin B and carbs from the vegetables, and you'll certainly get enough protein from meat/poultry/fish.

Good luck, and please keep us updated 

[brandy]

Thanks Guys! 

I'm going to keep using my curry pastes and my fish sauce!  Yay!  These items are the only added salt I've been using and I don't add much.

It's interesting:  before I found your site (which is GREAT by the way) I had started this routine:

Water all day
Breakfast is:
Fruit salad made with banana, plum, blueberries, raspberries, apple, 1/2 grapefruit squeezed over, 1 tbsp freshly ground golden flaxseed - I use a coffee grinder for this - it's really easy & quick, a probiotics pill made for women with cranberry in it - I just open it up and sprinkle on my fruit salad, a Cold FX pill - it's basically just ginseng and some cardamom - an East Indian sweet spice.  I feel really refreshed after having this for breakfast - really clean and alive - and it keeps me going for several hours.

Lupper or Linner (combination of lunch and dinner :-) is:
Loads of veggies like collards, broccoli, onions, garlic, ginger, red pepper, carrot, parsnip, turnip, beets, portobello mushrooms and either wild fish or shellfish or organic red meat or organic organ meat.  I also use olive oil, turmeric, cumin, coriander, cayenne, fenugreek, mustard seeds, basil, lemon juice, cilantro and dulse flakes - and finish with a little unsweetened fish sauce (ingredients are just fish extracts and salt) OR I use a natural ingredient curry paste I found as well as some cilantro and lemon juice.  I love curry and I love the heat from peppers.

If I get hungry again, I snack on red grapes and/or leftover cooked meat or seafood.  I also eat a nori sheet everyday for extra minerals from the sea.  I eat seafood at least three times a week, meat two times and organ meats two times.

I also drink peppermint tea - caffeine in any amount really does a number on me - even the amount in dark cocoa and/or green tea.  So I'm just staying away from it.  Alcohol also affects me strongly, so I've limited myself to the very occasional glass of red wine during a special event - and always with food.

That's pretty much my whole diet.  Now I'm just experimenting with different/new ways of cooking things - so I can give myself variety in my main meal.

I started eating this way to help my IBS - and also because of reading Paleo Diet sites and Blood Type diet sites.  The IBS site I found talked about consuming more soluble fiber and less insoluble fibre, and the root veggies on the Paleo way of eating (carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets) - as well as fruits like banana, grapefruit, apples - are all full of soluble fibre.  It's a good sign to me when I see that all these sites are telling me similar things.  Of course, wheat is chock-full of insoluble fibre - and while we do need some of that - and I do get it through broccoli and collards and other vegetables - for someone with IBS symptoms, it's not so good to load up on it.  Cutting out the high-fibre grains and beans has been a really good thing for me. 

Basically, if a food has to be cooked for a long time when in it's natural stage (grains, beans) in order to be digestible, I'm just not eating it.  I'm eating only what could have been hunted or gathered and eaten raw - but thank goodness for the invention of fire :-)  because I'm not a big into raw meat eating, but come to think of it, I do like my steaks a juicy medium rare :-)

I found your diet plan intriguing, so today I'm drinking just water until I get really, really hungry - and then I'm going to have my fruit salad - and keep on drinking water about an hour after that - and then have my main evening meal when I get really, really hungry again.

I'd love to hear about what other people are eating. 

Oh, I almost forgot:  If you haven't tried this, you really should!  Yesterday I made a huge baking sheet of roasted veggies.  First, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees.  Then, in a big bowl, I mixed up some  chunks of parsnip, turnip, carrot, yellow onion, red pepper, portobello mushroom and also added some garlic cloves (still in skin).  I drizzled olive oil all over everything and sprinkled in a liberal amount of dried rosemary.  I spread the mixture out onto a baking sheet (no need to grease it - the olive oil is enough) and the last thing I did was put some chunks of fresh beet in the bowl to coat them with what was left of the oil, and then placed the chunks in and around the other veggies.  I did this last so as not to color all the vegetables pink.  I roasted the veggies for 45 minutes and was it ever delicious.  The roasting was so yummy that I didn't even need any salt, but a small amount would probably make it even more delicious.  I would add the salt after baking though, so that the juices of the veggies (especially the mushrooms) stay intact.  Nothing like a roasted mushroom!  Or a roasted clove of garlic. 

This big pan of veggies is enough for a few meals - and they taste great cold out of the fridge the next day - I just put them into a big tupperware container once they've cooled.

If anyone tries this, please let me know how you liked it!

I'm going to post my progress here on this site as I go along.  It will be good to have like-minded people to share with. 

I'm looking forward to having that 12-year old kid energy again!

Brandy 

[Phanatic]

Oh, I almost forgot:  If you haven't tried this, you really should!  Yesterday I made a huge baking sheet of roasted veggies.  First, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees.  Then, in a big bowl, I mixed up some  chunks of parsnip, turnip, carrot, yellow onion, red pepper, portobello mushroom and also added some garlic cloves (still in skin).  I drizzled olive oil all over everything and sprinkled in a liberal amount of dried rosemary.  I spread the mixture out onto a baking sheet (no need to grease it - the olive oil is enough) and the last thing I did was put some chunks of fresh beet in the bowl to coat them with what was left of the oil, and then placed the chunks in and around the other veggies.  I did this last so as not to color all the vegetables pink.  I roasted the veggies for 45 minutes and was it ever delicious.  The roasting was so yummy that I didn't even need any salt, but a small amount would probably make it even more delicious.  I would add the salt after baking though, so that the juices of the veggies (especially the mushrooms) stay intact.  Nothing like a roasted mushroom!  Or a roasted clove of garlic. 

This big pan of veggies is enough for a few meals - and they taste great cold out of the fridge the next day - I just put them into a big tupperware container once they've cooled.

Good work Brandy! That sounds delicious. Something just extremely pleasing about a roast huh? Well about salt, it's my personal opinion that it's a natural taste that humans and all animals crave, and ancient civilisations held it in high regard. That said, the salt they got was probably not pure sodium chloride. Just guessing here but the salt the romans ate would have probably been much higher in minerals. I personally eat salt and enjoy it, maybe just don't eat too much because it can make you retain water and you'll seem heavier than you really are. I remember when I first started dieting I lost 3 kgs the first week which would have been mostly water, because I always used to get salty takeaways on the way home from school but cut that out on the diet.

[BaysideLady]

Hello!
[Note: drinking tons of pure water is good but without some added
Sea Salt too much water can dilute your blood. I speak from
experience.]

I just registered to reply to the "salt" question.
I can tell you that you NEED salt. I nearly died because of a drug
interaction (Bactrim) and loss of electrolytes.
I was in ER for 5 hours - near death - begging for an IV because
I KNEW that my rising blood pressure was due to a LACK of Sodium.

They FINALLY came with there blood tests and admitted, I have
hyponatremia = low blood sodium, because most people get salt
from junk/processed food. And since I try to follow a pure diet
(Blood typeO diet) -well I was lacking in salt.
But not until the Bactrim totally messed with my salt did I end up
near death.

After a full IV bag I was bouncing out of that ER room (5am) after
a night of terror. Even though I had been awake 48 hours and
nearly died from seizure-like activity, I felt TRULY ALIVE AND
WELL after they pumped that IV of SALT into me.
It was a change that is in-describable.

So...(this is per a medical doctor but is part of my routine now) I
must "watch" my intake of "free water" - I often drink water
(Artesian bottled) with added SEA SALT - quarter teaspoon or so.
Plus - most every morning I drink a glass of half water/half V-8 ( the
REGULAR /ORIGINAL - with about equal parts Na/K ) as
insurance that I am adding Sodium and Potassium to my
blood.

Please beware - especially if you switch from the SAD (standard
American diet) overnight to a much purer, unprocessed diet.
Don't deny your body the salt it needs...