The Week of Salt

It was great having Eric's parents with us for three weeks, and they made it safely home last Saturday...exhausted, but safe. One interesting thing about their visit was that Eric's dad, Tim, has something called Meniere's disease. It's an inner ear problem resulting in vertigo, tinnitus (ringing), and hearing loss. This comes and goes in the form of attacks, and he has found that if he adheres to a low salt diet, the attacks don't come as frequently.

So, we adjusted our diet for the three weeks he was here, and tried to cook low salt style. Have you ever tried it? It would be an interesting experiment to see if you could. There is salt in EVERYTHING these days...canned foods, cheese, processed meats, soups, condiments, etc. Our normal go-to meals (quick and easy) are all very salty. Our Kenyan staple foods are all prepared with a lot of salt. And the soups and stews we make frequently? FULL of salt.

I ended up making more meat, using more fresh veggies (when we could get them), and making homemade salt-free chicken broth to use in soups and such. I'm sure we were all much healthier at the end of the 3 wks. However....

When we returned home after dropping Eric's parents off, the first thing we made was tuna melts. The next day we had grilled cheese and tomato soup. Then pepperoni pizza. And Mexican beef stew. Yesterday we capped off the week by making Chinese dumplings (post to follow)...dipped in large quantities of soy sauce. Eric and I had to stop eating because we were feeling rather salt-saturated. So we deemed it the week of salt. Maybe it will actually become the month of salt...or the year...or the....