LOW SALT FOODS
An excellent amateur website full of colour pictures of low salt foods, information on where to buy them, recipes, ideas for low-salt meals, and other information on low salt eating, is: www.findlowsaltfood.info
Low Sodium Foods is a useful online shop that stocks a variety of low-salt processed foods, including some that are hard to obtain elsewhere: https://www.lowsodiumfoods.com.au/
You can download or print a 31-page guide to low salt eating produced by SMANZ (Salt Matters—Australia New Zealand). The guide includes advice on reducing salt in the diet, an illustrated shopping list of low salt foods, advice on how to get low salt food when eating out, the importance of low salt bread, suppliers of low salt foods, support groups, links to useful websites, and books for salt skippers. You can access the SMANZ Low Salt “Prescription” PDF from: www.smanz.info
For support and helpful information in choosing foods low in salt, you can join the salt matters email group. It is free, there is no advertising, and it is more private than most social media platforms. Just send a blank email to:
saltmatters-subscribe@ozdocit.org
There is a little more information (and an alternate way to subscribe) on this webpage:
http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/saltmatters
COOKBOOKS
Don Gazzaniga’s books
Don Gazzaniga had severe heart failure with fluid retention after collapsing while rowing (see Salt Matters page 228). He celebrated his amazing recovery by writing three books of recipes to help everybody to enjoy life to the full on a no-added-salt diet. Visit his website www.megaheart.com for full particulars, and for a free subscription to his monthly newsletter bringing you up to date with his latest recipes.
The Dizzy Chef
The Meniere’s Support Group of Victoria collected the best recipes that have been published in Salt Skip News for over two decades and put them in logical order for an organised cookbook. The Salt Skip Editorial Committee (named at the bottom of page 4 of every issue has several academic Accredited Practising Dietitians as well as a professor of medicine, and you trust these recipes for compliance with all the Australian Dietary Guidelines, with one exception—there is now published evidence that invertebrate seafood is not a low salt food even when freshly caught and rinsed in fresh water, so the two prawn dishes are not low in salt.
The Dizzy Chef cookbook is available from Low Sodium Foods (the online low salt food specialists):
https://www.lowsodiumfoods.com.au/
MENIERE’S SYNDROME
Salt is the main trigger for the disabling vertigo of Meniere’s (Salt Matters pages 159-161) and Australia ‘s peer-support groups for patients with Meniere’s syndrome provide personal support, and information to help Meniere’s patients to achieve good control of salt intake. Here are some Australian Facebook groups, webpages, and email groups:
Meniere’s Disease Australia – Down Under Dizzies
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/317517171643696/
Meniere’s – Sydney Support Group
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SydneyMenieresSupportGroup/
Website: https://sydneymenieressupportgroup.com/
Meniere’s Chat Group is an email discussion group dedicated to providing social support and the sharing of sensible information about Meniere’s (apart from advice on low salt, as that is covered by the salt matters email group). It is free, there is no advertising, and it is more private than most social media platforms. To start the joining process, send a blank email to:
menieres-subscribe@ozdocit.org
There is more information about the Meniere’s Chat Group on this webpage:
http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/menieres
COMMUNITY & PROFESSIONAL ACTION ON SALT REDUCTION
Action on Salt (formerly known as Consensus Action on Salt & Health, CASH) is a fine example of community action by a dozen British specialists in high blood pressure. The movement is now supported by 25 expert scientific members.
WASH (World Action on Salt and Health) was founded by CASH in 2005. Visit WASH at www.worldactiononsalt.com
The George Institute for Global Health, Food Policy Division, a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Salt Reduction (WHOCC SALT). This organization supports population-wide salt reduction interventions as a cost-effective approach to improving health. Their Australian campaigns seek help from health professionals, the food industry, government, scientists and consumer organisations to reduce salt intake by the whole community. The website contains evidence-based policies, recommendations, and bulletins. The items under the NEWS tab are of general interest.
https://www.whoccsaltreduction.org/
HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
The Queensland Hypertension Association (QHA) is Australia’s only support group for patients with high blood pressure, and has members in every Australian state and territory.
QHA holds meetings with talks by experts in hypertension (high blood pressure), usually at Greenslopes Private Hospital, Brisbane. The talks are reported in the QHA newsletter, The BP Monitor, which includes Salt Skip News, often with a new low-salt recipe. The latest issue of the newsletter is posted to members all over Australia every two months.
A new subscription costs $35, and a renewal costs $25.
The $35 fee for new members pays for booklets on why, and how, to skip salt, the QHA newsletter every two months, and information on how to obtain a copy of the book Salt Matters: a consumer guide – written by the late esteemed anti-salt campaigner, Dr Trevor C Beard, OAM. (Dr Beard was also the developer of this website and the author of almost all its content, apart from a few recent amendments.)
To join QHA, click on this link and print the QHA Membership Form.
Fill out the form, include your credit card details (or a cheque) for $35 and post to: The Secretary, Queensland Hypertension Association Inc., PO Box 193, Holland Park, QLD 4121. Overseas prices (credit card only) are AUD$45 to join and AUD$35 for a renewal.
Contact details and further information:
Web: https://www.hypertensionqueensland.com.au/
Email address: info@hypertensionqueensland.com.au
FAX: (07) 3394 7815
The World Hypertension League (WHL) is a division of the International Society of Hypertension. Its new website http://www.whleague.org/ caters for health professionals, but everybody else may be interested in keeping abreast of the international consensus on control— and above all prevention, with a better diet and lifestyle.
Page last modified on: Friday 16 August 2019