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  • From: Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>
  • To: Homestead mailing list digest <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] Re: Sodium and Potassium
  • Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 22:51:59 -0800

It's very easy to live on pretzels and cold cuts and cheese, and the sodium-potassium ratio of this sort of diet can approach 10:1, without plenty of fruits and vegetables to balance things out. These are the only foods that dramatically tip the balance in favor of potassium. Trouble is, I'm a lazy cook when I'm here alone, the fruit in the store is awful except for the bananas, I don't yet have enough garden beds to really have lots of produce, and the tomatoes are running out. These days bread has been really cheap, since the low-carb craze started, so it's easy to depend on it.

In my case there's another factor. My gall bladder reacts to grease, so without some bread or potatoes to soak it up, just the naturally occurring fat in meat causes me pain. So I can't just skip the carbs. I used to pop corn with the air popper, but the new one is shite, spewing out lots of old maids. The bread from the store is actually soft enough to eat with no butter. But as I've pointed out, the only way (short of potassium supplements) to maintain the right balance would be to eat plenty of the disappearing produce. And the store-bought bread does contain quite a bit of fat, too, so it's not that great a grease sponge.

The potato has become my only refuge, the only practical way for me to get enough potassium and absorb grease all year long, but even those are in limited supply. Figuring out how to make them taste good with no fat is another problem. But fortunately, as was the point of my original post, at least I can salt them freely.

I haven't yet encountered a need to worry yet about the solanine-arthritis link, but there are other roots. Virtually all are low in fat and high in potassium. Yacon and jerusalem artichoke are low in digestible calories, too. They're perfect for when you've spent the day at the fair, so you're not really hungry, but your sodium-potassium ratio could use improvement. Yacon seems to be pretty good at absorbing grease, too, but not quite as great as popcorn.

I confess I have some trouble making all my own food from scratch, when I'm here alone. I can't eat any kind of ready-made food, usually because of the grease. The alternative to cooking a 3-course dinner for one every night is to have lots of leftovers, the only way I stay sane. I really can't deal with coming in from working and finding nothing to eat when I'm ravenous, so I always keep cooked meat on hand. I haven't exactly mastered the art of _leftover_ fat-free potato dishes that taste good, so we're back to store-bought bread and the high sodium content!

Bill





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