The 5 Best Low Sodium Cookbooks for the Newly Diagnosed

It’s hard to change your diet. It’s even harder to lower your daily salt intake. If you have recently been told by a doctor that you need to change your diet to a low sodium diet you know how overwhelming this lifestyle change can be. Luckily, there is great information out there and fantastic food recipes that keep the flavor but lose the salt. But it’s difficult to figure out which cookbook is good and which one you should skip. I’ve made it easy and have listed the 5 best low sodium cookbooks to pick up when you start your low sodium diet.

American Heart Association Low-Salt Cookbook 4th Edition

Let’s face it. Your doctor is not a nutritionist (even though they have training in nutrition) and hiring one can be expensive. This book is the definitive guide that covers a lot of questions that your doctor was unable to fully explain during your last appointment. It covers everything:

· The impact of sodium on your health

· How to eat well according to the American Heart Association guidelines

· Tips for making food shopping easier

· Preparing food with helpful seasoning salt swaps

· Lifestyle recommendations on how to live healthily

· Over 200 flavorful recipes

· List of common high sodium foods and potassium-rich foods to offset your sodium intake

· Common cookbook features like ingredient substitutions and equivalents

The recipes are easy to follow and often include some cooking tips to make your low sodium diet work for your lifestyle. Each recipe has the nutrition information clearly labeled by serving which is helpful for those who have also been tasked with losing weight by their doctor. While each entry has a tasty-sounding intro to the recipe, the cookbook does not include any pictures. The healthy living information in the first section alone makes this cookbook invaluable.

You can pick it up from the American Heart Association website.

500 15-Minute Low Sodium Recipes

Once we’ve gotten over the shock of having to lower our sodium intake, one of the overwhelming pieces to being prescribed a low sodium diet is how much salt there is in every day, prepackaged foods. And not many of us have the time to research and create all our sauces and dressings. Here’s where this book is a genuine time saver. Dick Logue has created 500 recipes that you can cook in 15 minutes or less. That’s pure gold for any family that needs to juggle dinner while picking the kids up from soccer practice and dance lessons on a busy weeknight.

This book covers the following topics:

· Tips and tricks on how to introduce low sodium cooking into your lifestyle

· An ingredient list that shows which foods are high in sodium and which are your better options

· Where to shop

· A make-ahead guide of over 20 items to help keep your food cooking time at 15 minutes or less

· A variety of recipes that take 15 minutes to cook from start to finish

· A plethora of recipes that take 15 minutes or less to prep and you let them cook

The recipes are easy to follow and I found that most of the ingredients listed were easy to find at basic grocery stores. The cookbook lists nutritional values for each recipe but does not include pictures.

You can pick up 500 15-Minute Low Sodium Recipes from Amazon.

Sodium Girl’s Limitless Low-Sodium Cookbook

Medical jargon and personality-free prose not for you? Then here’s the low salt cookbook you’ve been waiting for! Jessica Goldman Foung delivers over 200 pages of delicious low sodium recipes and tips on how to maintain this lifestyle.

This book includes the following features:

· A relatable story about the author and how she ended up on a low sodium diet

· How to prepare your home for a low sodium lifestyle

· Embracing the low sodium diet

· A variety of recipes including dips, sauces, sweets, and drinks

The recipes are organized and displayed in an easy-to-find manner with a delicious entry about the food. Many of the recipes include palate-teasing pictures. While the recipes did not include nutritional information they did include a sodium count. The recipes are fun and tasty however I did find the introductions and non-recipe parts to be overly lengthy and a bit wordy. You can do what I do and skip over the prose and dive straight into the recipes!

You can pick this cookbook up on Amazon or follow the author on her blog Sodium Girl.

The Easy Low-Sodium Diet Plan & Cookbook

If you’re anything like me, you often don’t have time to plan out what you’re going to cook for dinner that night, let alone for an entire week. Here’s where this book saves you time and does the hard work for you. It includes 2 different month-long meal plans based on your diagnosis.

In addition to meal plans, this cookbook has:

· An introduction on diet and health

· Lifestyle changes tips and tricks

· Over 95 low salt recipes

· Most recipes have a slow cooker option or the standard stovetop/oven method

One thing I loved about this book is that in addition to listing nutritional information, each recipe also stated whether it was meatless, dairy-free, gluten-free, low-fat, or one-pot. This is great for those of us that also have additional dietary restrictions beyond the low sodium intake. Another helpful tool that Lower adds to the recipes is the addition of a salt meter, where you can easily see whether a recipe is low salt, lower salt, or lowest salt to help plan your day.

You can check out Christopher Lower’s blog and pick up this cookbook on Amazon.

How Not to Die Cookbook

If you are looking for a physician-written book, this one is fantastic. I will say that you may want to pick up Michael Greger, M.D.’s two other books, How Not to Die and How Not to Diet if you are interested in learning more about how what you eat can help prevent and reverse disease.

How Not to Die is based on the simple premise that eating more plant-based food can help you live longer and help reverse disease.

This cookbook is more straightforward and heavier on the recipes than the others listed.

· It has a brief introduction on the premise of the How Not to Die approach

· Lists different ways you should change up your diet according to your disease diagnosis

· Includes over 100 plant-based recipes

While each recipe does not list the nutritional information, it does have a difficulty meter listed, so those of us who are not super skilled in the kitchen can still eat a low-sodium diet. Not every recipe has pictures, but those that do are beautiful and look tasty.

You can check out Greger’s cookbook on his site NutritionFacts.org or you can buy it on Amazon.

The Leftovers

While it may seem intimidating to start your low salt journey, picking up any of these cookbooks is a great way to cut through the confusion. I wish you good luck and tasty food for your next step into low sodium diet living.