Salt and High Blood Pressure

[kathyaggie]

I'm watching the latest (September) Advanced Study Weekend and listened to how salt can contribute to high blood pressure. And also coffee can also contribute to high blood pressure.

1. How can you eat rice and beans without some salt? Use low-sodium tamari? Or perhaps balsamic vinegar which is delicious on steamed kale? Or perhaps put some raisins in the rice (like you find in rice pudding - but I wouldn't use any sweetners)? I could eat beans with homemade salsa (without the salt and sugar they add at Whole Foods).

2. Could I substitute green tea for coffee and be okay if I only had a couple of cups of green tea per day and not cause high blood pressure?

3. Also, is some honey okay in tea? I know sugar is very bad for us.

4. When I was taking the Ann Wigmore raw and living foods class, I really loved the green smoothies. I didn't care if we used a very small amount of fruit. I found the green smoothies delicious and didn't need salt. But Dr. Esselstyn says to create nitric oxide for the endothelial cells we need to chew our greens.

5. Are raw greens as healthful al steamed greens? Or more healthful?

Could someone address all the above questions? The last blood pressure reading I had was 147/84. Because of my terrible diet of too many sweets (although being vegan except for some slips into eating chicken from Chick Filet, and ice cream), I'm afraid of heart disease, strokes. I do not wish to go to a doctor and do not have a family doctor. I don't take tests (mammograms, colonoscopy, etc.) except for some blood tests from time to time where my cholesterol is usually around 210 with bad reading on the LDL part of it).

I have become convinced that the starch-based died promoted by Dr. McDougall, Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Ornish, Dr. Joel Kahn (from the September Advanced Study Weekend) is the right way to eat. Everytime I have gone on this type diet, the swelling in my ankles goes down and I have more energy). I just have a few of the above concerns while now following this diet.

Thank you for your help,

[colonyofcells]

https://www.drmcdougall.com/2014/06/30/food-poisoning/
https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/educ ... t-allowed/
https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2009nl/nov/bp.htm
Can try a different starch like sweet potato which can be eaten raw or boiled without any need for salt. Winter squash also taste sweet and does not need salt. I agree grains and sprouted grains can be sweetened with dried fruit.

[vgpedlr]

I don't think your BP is yet a cause for concern. As far as I know, it's not even treatable yet according to guidelines. Good for you to see this and get started on dietary change. Get a home BP monitor and check it on your own to see trends. As for salt, 70-80% of American sodium intake comes from packaged foods and restaurants. Follow Jeff's guidelines for packaged food and minimize eating out and you'll fix that problem. Salt as a condiment at the table is allowed.

[dailycarbs]

Green tea is ok.

Once you go 100% complaint your salt problem is primarily solved. If you want to take another step just stop using salt at the table and eliminate it from all store bought foods by reading labels. Your taste buds adjust and everything you liked salty before now tastes too salty. The homeade salsa is a good idea but I'm lazy so I use the lowest salt, inexpensive store bought (newman's mild is what I can usually find at most supermarkets). You can keep salt at recommended daily intake this way if your diet is already compliant. Check by plugging in a few days at CRON-O-Meter.

Try to get off smoothies of any kind. If you feel you that you can't right now, have them occasionally as treats but don't convince yourself that they're healthy, necessary or preferred food. They're not. So yeah, chew your greens.

Eat your greens raw or cooked. Don't worry about which is healthier. They're both healthy.

Avoid raw vegan gurus. They may be well meaning but there is nothing to suggest that food is more healthy eaten raw. It's good to get a mix of both.

A little honey, sugar or other sweeter isn't going to kill you if it helps you eat a healthy meal. Just to don't get carried away with it and start piling it on. For example, some people like their oatmeal sweetened. But the food is the oatmeal. If you were to start piling on raisins, or honey, or whatever, the oatmeal becomes secondary. So keep an eye on it and don't make condiments the primary food.

Don't overthink it. The work is done by following a simple plan day in day out. If you have a smoothie or some store bought salsa once in a while you'll be ok as long as you stick to the plan.

My BP started at 140/89 and with above guidelines it's now 111/69 average. We have no salt in our house and I never salt my food. Other than some store bought foods like the Newman's mild salsa (which I limit), I mostly eat whole foods (potatoes, rice, vegetables and fruit). When my wife makes foods such as bean chili or lentil loaf she doesn't use any salt or items with added salt and I never miss the old salty taste. I avoid off plan meals. They taste way too salty for me. If I eat an off plan meal at a restaurant, my mouth gets dried out at night and I get a mild headache.

Good luck!

[arugula]

there is nothing to suggest that food is more healthy eaten raw.

disagree. there are maybe 60+ studies in pubmed showing greater protection from raw vegetables compared to cooked for certain types of cancers. i think this is amazing and should not be downplayed. doesn't mean we have to eat all raw but we ought to be getting an appreciable amount from raw.

[vegman]

1. How can you eat rice and beans without some salt? Use low-sodium tamari? Or perhaps balsamic vinegar which is delicious on steamed kale? Or perhaps put some raisins in the rice (like you find in rice pudding - but I wouldn't use any sweetners)? I could eat beans with homemade salsa (without the salt and sugar they add at Whole Foods).

When you first stop eating salt, food does not taste right, but after a short while, it tastes just fine. Including rice and beans.

I eat no salt and usually use no spices either. The food tastes great.

[ETeSelle]

SOME salt is OK. The problem is that prepared foods have tons of salt, restaurant foods have tons of salt, and everyone is USED to tons of salt. I cook with NO salt, use only no-salt-added canned beans and tomatoes, etc. But I LIGHTLY salt some foods after cooking. That adds a negligible amount. The problem is when you eat out a lot, use processed foods (including Dr. McDougall's soups!) a lot, etc.

[Crider]

At age 29 I was diagnosed with a mild hypertension. But about twelve years ago (I'm 61 now), I was diagnosed with malignant hypertension. The systolic was greater than 210. An optometrist had discovered hypertensive retinopathy during an exam. At the time, I was given enough meds to bring it down to reasonable levels.

So when I went McDougall, My BP came down a bit and I stopped my meds and ate low sodium, but after a while it persisted in the high 140 to mid 150 area. Only by quitting added salt completely would it go down further. It's now at the mid to high 120s That means zero salty packaged food and zero salty restaurant food for me. I don't use salt on my rice and home-cooked beans, but I do use sriracha sauce. It's pretty low sodium compared to most hot sauces. I keep soy sauce in a squeeze bottle so I can apply it by the drop! I'd say my daily intake of sodium contained in the foods naturally plus added in hot sauce and soy sauce is about 500 mg per day. I don't do breads from the supermarket because the sodium is so very high, but Safeway makes a whole wheat sodium-free sandwich bread.

I once had two little 99¢ Taco Bell bean burritos fresco style (salsa instead of cheese) and the next day my systolic had shot up to 160. I looked them up online and discovered they each had 1,000 mgs of sodium! So I must be very strict. The way food tastes to me now is just fine as long as everything I eat has no added sodium. Eating a salty food can quickly skew my taste buds into thinking the other food is bland.

Walter Kempner treated hypertension with his famous no-sodium rice diet. Alan Goldhamer at True North is a proponent of no sodium in the food. They can get just about everybody's BP down to normal by making them do a water fast. That's zero sodium! Dr. Greger today released an interesting video about how the salt industry is behind a campaign to sow doubt on the effectiveness of no sodium eating. Sprinkling Doubt: Taking Sodium Skeptics with a Pinch of Salt.

I'm used to eating salt free now and I've never been healthier. I compliment my foods with hot sauce and/or sour flavors that come from vinegar, lime juice, lemon juice, and tamarind.

Also, giving up caffeine was good for a few BP points and it freed me of being groggy in the morning because of caffeine withdrawal. I stopped caffeine after I had been doing this way of eating for several months. There's no rush.

[dailycarbs]

disagree. there are maybe 60+ studies in pubmed showing greater protection from raw vegetables compared to cooked for certain types of cancers. i think this is amazing and should not be downplayed. doesn't mean we have to eat all raw but we ought to be getting an appreciable amount from raw.

I haven't looked at the studies and I'm not planning on sifting through them. I guess it will depend on methods used—like all studies. If I'm to believe studies at face value, I should be on the Mediterranean diet—not McDougall.

The okinawans and many others have done pretty well just eating their starches with some cooked veggies and fresh fruit. Traditional diets and common sense are the basis of my woe but I understand that some people like to parse numbers more so for them maybe yeah, decide for yourself. As it is, I eat plenty of raw veggies as well just because it's convenient and I like it. But I'm not one overthink it and age my brocolli.

[kathyaggie]

I bought the September Advanced Weekend videos and am learning a lot.

I got my blood pressure down to very low numbers when I went on a 25-day water fast (no coffee) under daily 30-minute morning telephone conferences with Loren Lockman. He runs Tanglewood, a fasting place in Costa Rica. I lost from 180 to 150 pounds during the fast and kept it off for a month or more, then started eating sweets and gained it all back. Since starting the McDougall diet, i've lost to to 170 without any effort. Loren iss very, very slender and very strong (one of his videos shows his exercise routine). He only eats fruit and young green leafy vegetables. He wanted me to do the same, but I could never find really good tasting fruit in Atlanta, Georgia, and I also wasn't totally sold on this way of eating. I kept craving salad and vegetables.

I have always been terrified of ever having a stroke after seeing people who have had them, including my aunt. I just fround out that Dr. Denis Parsons Burkitt died of a stroke at 82. I thought eating a 100% plant-based, starch diet with absolutely no oil is supposed to protect us from strokes and heart attacks. I can't find a lot of informatin on Dr. Burkitt's daily diet, but because of the way he beieved, I would like to know how he could have a stroke and at the young age of 82!

I cooked brown rice today and had "rice pudding." I put a little honey and some raisins in the rice and made my own version. I think another way to eat rice without salt would be to cook tomatoes and onions (for sweetness) and mix with the rice.

I am also steaming leafy greens. My favorite is steamed kale with balsamic vinegar on it (Dr Esselstyn's suggestion). I also intend to eat raw salads.

Perhaps just the little amount of soy sauce on rice may be okay. I wonder if the only thing wrong with a little salt is the way it makes your blood pressure go up.

Also, concernign coffee, I'm substituting green tea later in the day, but still have one cup of coffee in the morning. I think this can damage your artercies because of the cortisol, so I'm weaning off coffee.

Thank you for any other suggestions and also if anyone knows why Dr. Burkitt died of a stroke when his diet must have been along the lines Dean Ornish promotes.

[colonyofcells]

I don't believe Starch Solution can make old people immune from strokes but the chances of getting strokes are probably lower as seen in Dr McDougall who has been stroke free for many decades. There are also 2 types of strokes and probably nobody is immune to both types of strokes.

[dailycarbs]

I don't know Dr. Burkitt's diet either and we also don't know his family history. There's certainly no guarantee and genes do play a role—as evidenced by the long lived examples of people who smoke and drink. But for most of us, this woe and lifestyle will allow our particular set of genes to do the best they can. Sort of making the best of the hand you're dealt. At least that's what I'm betting on.

You've lost a lot of weight! Congrats! If you don't mind me asking, what's your bmi? BP and blood sugar are both greatly affected by extra weight. More in some people than others. Your BP is not that bad. If I were you I'd stay on plan and not stress out. I think that you'll see progress over time. Mine took a while to bring down. I'm not sure if was the last few pounds, giving up coffee, or just time and adherence. I quit the salt early and I'm not going back. Added salt is a bad habit in my book and I know it effects me in many ways such dry mouth and slight headaches. And of course BP. I just don't mess around with it other than a few condiments that I get pre-packaged where it's hard to avoid. Even then, I go out of my way to get the only mustard I can find that has no salt added.

[kathyaggie]

My favorite meal in addition to steamed kale with balsamic vinegar is a bowl of brown rice with Tamari on it (I don't use much). I like to have the bowl of rice and a cup of green tea sweetened with honey. Does this sound okay to eat/drink?

[colonyofcells]

Tamari is allowed.
These are the suggested replacements for caffeine tea : Non-caffeinated herb tea (like hibiscus tea), cereal beverages (like teeccino, cafix), hot water with lemon.

[healthyvegan]

https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/educ ... /salts-ok/

treat the underlying condition, not salt used on the surface of food.