Health is a powerful gift we can give ourselves for a wide range of reasons. Certainly, becoming healthy is a good state to be in. It conveys we care about ourselves, our family, and our community. As part of the Healthy Living Habits monthly series I thought this month I would share why we have cut a lot of salt from our diet.
I’m of Chinese descent and my family has a history of high blood pressure and stroke. I grew up consuming a lot of sodium and sugar, mostly sodium due to soy sauce. My grandfather suffered a stroke in his 70s and a couple years later he passed away. My aunt, his daughter, also died from stroke in her 70s.
Stroke is the leading cause of death in China, and it strikes Chinese people a lot earlier than it does in other race. One of the potential causes of stroke is related to hypertension, the high level of salt consumption.
Once I became pregnant, I looked at mortality differently. Not that I didn’t care before but I started to live my life healthier and more conscientious of what I put in my body. I wanted a healthy pregnancy and most importantly, healthy babies. Once the twins were born, I became obsessed with improving our health. Hubby and I wanted to live longer so that we can spend more time with our kids, to see them finish college, and hopefully long enough to see them starting their own family.
The only salt that we eat in our household now is Himalayan salt, minimally. We have soy sauce at home too but we use it minimally when cooking.
How did we do it? Ten years ago, hubby and I started to replace the iodine salt with sea salt. Then gradually cutting down from 1 teaspoon per meal to 1 teaspoon a day.
Then after the birth of our twins, we started eating Himalayan salt, and have been eating 1 teaspoon per couple of days of that salt since. Hey, if the Tibetan monks have healthy lifestyle by eating Himalayan salt and living in the mountainous areas, then I think we should eat them too.
It was difficult at first but once our palate got used to not eating salty food it became easier and easier. Now it is habitual. Sometimes, I don’t even bother adding salt to any food. The twins too don’t even like salty food, which is good.
I don’t know if this will completely eliminate the possibility of stroke from my life, but I do know that by not consuming too much salt I have eliminated one of the risk factors that could potentially disable and/or kill me.
I hope you too will think twice when you grab the table salt next time. Until then, have a healthy weekend and see you on the blog next week!
