My main focus here will be information about a healthy heart. Knowledge is power.

Here we will discuss the salt free lifestyle. How to reduce the sodium in your diet. How to cook salt free, the health benefits of low sodium cooking, salt free recipes, salt free tips and information about the salt free diet.  Lowering your blood pressure naturally.

We will also cover diabetes and the diabetic diet.  This includes a low sodium diet, sugar free cooking, diabetic cooking, low carb cooking and general information about sugar and sugar substitutes.

I want to also add information about gluten and celiac disease.  This is becoming a major undiagnosed disease.

Dialysis and the dialysis diet. I want to keep as many as I can off dialysis. Those on dialysis I want to help them enjoy their food as best they can.

General health questions and answers and links to helpful information and websites.

First:  Take the salt shaker off the table and don't add salt to your cooking.

Just by eliminating salt from the table and your cooking, these steps alone will help alot in reducing the sodium in your diet.

One teaspoon of table salt is 2368 mg of sodium. So you can see that it is very easy to overdo the daily sodium allowance of about 2000 mg. Your body only needs about 368 mg of sodium per day. Easily attainable without any added salt.

If you can't have salt you can't have sea salt or Kosher salt. Sea salt has the same amount of sodium as regular salt (just a better balance of minerals).  Kosher salt may look lower sodium on the label but it is just a larger granule. Weight for weight it has the same sodium content as regular salt.

According to the nutrition labels a healthy diet would be up to 2000 mg of sodium for women and 2400 mg of sodium for men per day. That would be no more than 1/4 teaspoon of salt per meal, which is actually a serving. That is for a healthy diet. If you are on a reduced or low sodium diet it should be less than that. Many of you tell me you are on a really reduced low sodium diet of only 2000 mg of sodium,  but as you see, it is just the amount of sodium as recommended by the FDA for a healthy diet. You should actually try to get under 1300mg to 1500mg of sodium for a healthier heart diet.  Under 1000 mg of sodium per day would be ideal. I remember the doctor telling my Mom to reduce her sodium to only 100mg per day, but she averaged about 500mg per day.  That was definately a reduced sodium diet.

Disclaimer:  This will be information, ideas and comments only. You should always check with your doctor before trying or changing anything.