Salty Mama

So this weekend, the Squirrel's softball team played in a tournament that was all day Saturday!  If you've ever been to one of these events, it's a LONG day with little time for eating right.  This makes for another situation that you need to have a plan for.  My daughter didn't find out she was going to this tournament until Friday afternoon at 3:30pm! So the first thing she told me was "the other girls are planning to bring fruit".  That's great because that's less I have to buy!  Fruits may have some natural sodium, but for the most part, it's VERY low.  Usually someone nearby has pineapple, apple slices, and grapes.  I still bought her some extra grapes though :) I also found "hint of salt" Triscuits AND Wheat Thins  while walking around.  They contain 50-55mg per serving. We also grabbed some almonds.  Blue Diamond makes lightly salted almonds.  These are about 40mg per serving When out and about, you need a swee...

So our new schedule has made for a crazy week - Squirrel has had softball practice every afternoon until 5:30.  That means we didn't get home until almost 6!  Most nights this week, that meant "fend for yourself"!  Most of those nights the Squirrel had cereal (Mini Wheats) for dinner.  But one night, we had tacos! For this, we get bagged lettuce, chopped onions, and corn tortillas.  This week, we forgot the onions and only grabbed pico de gallo (for the rest of us, not the Squirrel - that stuff has salt added!). But we brown ground beef (check your label, but it usually ranges from 75-85mg) and add either Mrs. Dash taco seasoning or one of the MANY Mrs. Dash flavors. Once all that's on the table, we build our tacos/bowls how we each like - The Turkey likes just meat and cheese, the Squirrel likes hers on the corn tortilla (0mg each) with meat, cheese, and onions. Check back soon for more details on how this salty mama feeds her sodium restricted Squir...

On Sunday, we hung around the house, cleaned up, and mentally prepared for a new schedule to start this week.  This week the Squirrel starts her school softball practices each day, and her brother, the Turkey, is finishing up his basketball practices and games. For lunch, the Squirrel made fried rice.  She heated up a package of the 90 second Uncle Ben's rice, cut up some veggies, and mixed it all together in the frying pan. This has been her go to lately for a quick meal.  And it's yummy.

Saturday night we planned to eat at our favorite restaurant - S&T Soda Shoppe !  We love this place! They have a great menu and the staff will work with you to customize your order.  They have salads, burgers, fajitas, etc.  And another great The Squirrel likes to order their "Hillsboro Street Burger".  She adds lettuce and onion and requests that they add no seasoning to the burger (picture is an S&T burger, but not the way she orders it).  She also likes the sweet potato fries as well. But the best thing to get there is the Banana split!  And this is why she watches what she eats the rest of the day!   This thing is huge!  It's 3 flavors of  ice cream, drizzled with cherry, pineapple, and strawberries, then some chocolate syrup, topped with whipped cream, sprinkles, and cherries.  And while their menu says 3 scoops, those "scoops" are about 3 scoops high!  Do NOT go and plan to eat this alone!  It...

As I mentioned yesterday, we spent Saturday on the road.  The Squirrel ate breakfast at home - cereal and milk with a glass of OJ (check the labels on your OJ!).  At lunch, we were sitting at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill.  The food there was mostly fast food - Bojangles and Chic-fil-a - and while she can eat a FEW things at each, we had plans for dinner that would possibly make her higher ;) Since we knew we'd be gone all day, we took some items we knew she could eat - Smucker's Uncrustables, Star Crunches, and lemon Nekot cookies. The tip here is to plan ahead when you know you'll be away.  A cooler in the back of the car doesn't take up too much space.

Happy weekend everyone!  We've had a fun weekend.  We ended up taking a day trip to watch UNC sports - Lacrosse and Softball - on Saturday.  GO HEELS! Friday night we had a sports meeting at the high school for the Squirrel.  She made the softball team!  She's also been designated as the captain!  We're so proud of her.  But the meeting last until about 7pm.  That doesn't leave a lot of time to have dinner, so we went to Moe's (WELCOME TO MOE'S!).  Their site has a great nutrition calculator where you can build your order and see your values. She used to get the MooMoo Mr. Cow, but she loaded so much on it, they couldn't roll it.  She's upgraded now to the Joey Bag of Donuts (10" tortilla).  On Friday, she was pretty low (mini wheats cereal for breakfast and left overs for lunch), so she was able to add cilantro rice to her Joey Bag of Donuts.  Only add the FRESH vegetables - onions, lettuce, tomatoes, jalapenos, etc....

Just a few tips for your Friday - When you eat out, you can request oil and vinegar for your salad at most places.  Italian and Balsamic dressings are still pretty high, even though they shouldn't be. Stay away from anything that is creamy or sauce covered. Stay away from anything with "Salt" in the name.  Salted caramel, for example. Some restaurants will actually charge you extra for some changes.  We went to a Mexican restaurant that did this.  I wouldn't have minded it, except they didn't tell me!  It was just on the bill. Avoid McDonald's and most fast food places.  There are some items at these places, but many are higher in sodium than you would expect.  We do eat at Wendy's, but we'll talk about that another time. If you are looking for something more than hamburger or chicken, you can eat most seafood, season it with (you guessed it!) Mrs. Dash and no salt butter and saute it in a pan. Check your labels before buying any food. Check ...

One night this week, we had hamburgers.  We buy the pre-formed, Wal-Mart brand patties.  They are 45mg per patty.  This is great! And since they are so low, we can do more.  We have put them in a pan with low sodium brown gravy, grilled them, and baked them.  We put a chunk of cheese between 2 patties, patted them together to make a jumbo patty, and grilled them.  The weather this week has been beautiful! We put these on the "Food Lion Hamburger Buns", as shown below.  These are 180mg per bun!  When we grill a single patty, we often use the "Pepperidge Farm Golden Potato Slider Buns".  These babies are 135mg per bun! We also make fries to go with our burgers.  Up until about 6 months ago, we would make our own fries - potatoes cut to fry shape, tossed with olive oil and Mrs. Dash, and baked.  But we happened to do a label check one day and stumbled upon "Nathan's Famous Jumbo Crinkle Cut French Fries".  These fr...

This is another tough topic.  Breakfasts are hard, but I'll post different tips as I find them!  The other night we had breakfast for dinner.  We LOVE this dinner option! Now, I want to point out that natural items (things that come straight from something - meat, eggs, fruits, veggies) are hard to pin down.  You can google it, sometimes packaging says something, but I don't know that anyone can pin it down.  I've seen a range of values for these items. For starters, we had eggs.  Google says 62mg, Egg Nutrition Center says 70mg, and LiveStrong actually differentiates between the sizes.  Let's just say, it is low, but make sure you do NOT add salt to your eggs!  Prepare them using pepper and/or Mrs. Dash.  The Squirrel likes her's scrambled, but you could also fry them and sprinkle the Mrs. Dash on them as they cook. We also make hash brown potatoes.  These are usually diced up potatoes (13mg for a whol potato), tossed with a li...

You always need a base for your meal, right?  Rice is a great base to put stuff on, but bag rice can take a while.  Uncle Ben and some other companies have made this amazing 90 second rice, but the yummy flavored ones are high in sodium.  Not these 3!  The Jasmine and Basmati are both 0mg and the Original is only 10mg per serving!  We use these for hamburgers in gravy, fried rice, and many other recipes! Please note that there are other companies that make these, just make sure you check the labels!

The Squirrel is a freshman this year.  That means teen parties and youth groups - sodas, pizza, chips.... This is a tough situation for anyone, but particularly teens.  The lowest sodium level I've found on pizza was about 450mg for a single slice.  That's almost 1/4 of her daily limit!  And most people don't provide the low sodium chips or water bottles.  That means she ends up lingering around while all her friends are chowing down.  It's so disheartening! What we usually do is feed her beforehand, so she can just say "Oh, I already ate."  But that doesn't help too much.

As I mentioned previously, many of our close friends have adapted to the Squirrel's needs.  Saturday night was one of those times.  Our friends asked us over to hang out.  They made a Boston Butt in the treager, salad, corn on the cobb, and BBQ bread. Now, they like to season their Boston Butt with a seasoning that contains salt, but they seem to always have a piece of fish in the freezer for the Squirrel :)  She sauted the fish in some butter, Mrs. Dash (this will become a standard on this blog!), and lemon juice. The salad was a "make your own" style, so she could add the items she could have and leave the items out that she couldn't.  We had lettuce with a little cheese, crazons, cashews, and dressing.  I think she only ate the lettuce and dressing, but the options were there ;) For the corn, we spread it with butter and sprinkled it with more Mrs. Dash, wrapped it in foil and threw it on the grill for a few minutes.  Now, we used Countr...

Friday night we went out to celebrate the Squirrel's remission and not having to go back to the doctor for a year.  This can be a tricky time - eating out with kids who have special dietary needs.  Our friends often ask us out to eat and we have to determine where before we can even commit.  Many of our closest friends have learned where we can and can't go. The best places are the locally owned places - they are more likely to work with your needs.  You can ask for things cooked with certain ingredients or in a certain way - grilled instead of fried, spaghetti with oil and vinegar, etc.  We have a great selection in our town - But for our celebration Friday night we chose Mediterranean!  Famous Restaurant & Baking Company was our place because the Squirrel LOVES a gyro! Now before you go crazy wondering what in the world I'm talking about!  Have I lost my mind?!?  Letting my sodium restricted daughter eat a sandwich with processe...

After the horrible story I shared yesterday, I am happy to report that my daughter (let's call her my Squirrel from here on out) is in remission and has been for almost 2 years.  She plays softball regularly - travel, rec, and school.  She's a freshman in high school, has excellent grades, and enjoys volunteering and helping out at our church.  She's also planning to become a (better that she had) dietitian. First a few notes Make sure you look at serving sizes!  We do have to remind the Squirrel regularly that just because these items are low sodium, they are not necessarily low calories! Always check label!  We've had a few instances where something we regularly bought changed to a higher sodium level and we've also sometimes found new items with lower sodium. When you are starting out, keep a journal.  That way you know you are staying at the sodium level your doctor wants you to be around. Now, to our first topic - Snacks.  This is a t...