COVID-19, Sodium Intake

Hello –
It has been a while, and I will explain that in a different post, but for this post, I want to talk about one major thing – COVID-19 and your sodium intake.

Our daily lives are disrupted right now. Stores are out of essentials and shopping is frustrating. We are supposed to have a household supply of food, on hand, to last us all 2 weeks. Understandably, if that food is supposed to be sitting around waiting, it will most likely not be fresh foods, but canned, boxed or frozen.

Please understand that the average American consumes too much sodium on a normal basis. High sodium intake effects your health in a very negative way, including high blood pressure, other heart issues, kidney and liver problems, and a long list of other ill health problems. Do yourself a favor during this mess of a time and eat fresh food if possible. If you do not have access to fresh food, try healthier frozen foods and if you cannot eat those foods, be aware of your sodium intake. Read the labels; do the math. Canned and processed food is super high in sodium. If that is all that is available, DRINK WATER. Drink it. You will gain water weight for a while after eating a high sodium meal, but your body NEEDS the H2O to flush the sodium out of your body. Just keep drinking water.

Why do I write this? Glad you asked!
See, I continued to stare at a GIANT jar of GIANT pickles that took up a 10th of my food storage space on the only 2 shelves I have available for canned and jar food (my boxed food is kept in the freezer).

My family was supposed to be driving from Wisconsin and traveling to Philadelphia this past weekend. So, like any good CEO of a household kitchen would do, I tailored our meals for the past 2 weeks to get rid of all refrigerator foods, even down to the condiments. I have 2 onions in the fridge for fresh vegetables, that’s it. Back to these pickles, which were bought for a family or friends get together, which will not be happening, as we are set to move soon, and so have little-to-no canned or boxed food in the house…I decided yesterday was the day to open the jar of pickles and pass them around to the members of the family to consume as a vegetable and give me back my storage space that the jar was inhabiting. I read the label for the calories, 1 serving, 1/4th a GIANT pickle, 5 calories. Sounds good. I did not, however, look at the sodium levels of then pickle. When I tried to bite in to said pickle, I found it was not crisp and crunchy like I was expecting, but limp, blah and sad. Not willing to waste, I cut the pickle up with a fork and knife, suggested to my husband he do the same thing, and I cut my daughter’s pickle for her. We started eating our pickles. Mine was vile, and I do not like large amounts of pickles, and I cannot eat pickled anything else, as I start to vomit and my body will not allow me to choke down said food. So there I sat, refusing to waste food, repressing the urge to puke, finishing the horribly dissatisfying pickle! And I had a whole jar of these repulsive pickled cukes left to consume sometime over the next couple of days. I couldn’t eat them plain! There had to be a better way to get through the jar, otherwise I would die!

So I looked up a recipe for making oven baked “fried” pickles. Bowl of flour, bowl of beaten eggs, bowl of bread crumbs and some seasonings. Dunk giant sliced cucumbers that have been bathed in salt, into flour then egg and then salted bread crumbs mixed with seasoned salt and bake them at 475 for 30 minutes. Dip in to sauce. I dipped mine in to mustard, which surprise, has sodium in it! I made a whole tray full of these things – more than half of the jar of pickles was put into this h’orderve – only to remember that my husband does not like fried pickles, and my daughter is a hit and miss eater over this stuff.
So for dinner, I ate fried pickles.

And I noticed right away, after finishing my dinner, that I was in a bit of trouble. See, I am a Diet Coke addict and Diet Coke paired perfectly with fried pickles and spicy mustard. I drank 3 with dinner. Not smart. However, an hour or two later, I needed water badly. I craved it. I drank water heavily for the rest of the night, not needing to urinate at all. My fingers started to feel strange. They were not swollen, just felt super weird. I knew it was from sodium, but I already consumed it, now I had to wait it out. I started to get a headache, stomach ache and felt nasty. After I got my daughter to bed, which is late because we all go to bed late in our house, I slipped in to bed as well. After drinking the 3 Diet Cokes, plus over 48 ounces of water, I went to bed without a pit stop to the bathroom. I fell asleep only to be woke up by my daughter at 1:50 am. She was tired of playing in her room instead of sleeping, and needed to go to the bathroom. (Lucky her). After helping her in the bathroom and getting her back into bed, explaining that pulling every toy that she owns in to her bedroom to have a midnight picnic is not acceptable, I myself got back to bed.

With my heart pounding, fingers a nasty color of red, legs swollen, mouth burning and still incapable of urinating, I laid in bed for over an hour, annoyed that I didn’t think before I ate my dinner hours prior. Finally I fell asleep. I woke up light headed, but managed to urinate, not the shade of yellow I wished to see, but urine, none-the-less. I was well under my calorie allotment for the day, for the past several days actually, however, I still managed to gain 5.6 pounds in water weight in a 24 hour period. I started my day with our normal breakfast of water, tea, coffee and a protein drink. I am pleased to say that I am finally using the bathroom as I should, the swelling is gone, my fingers are back to their pale colored selves instead of the alarming red they were and I am not consuming such a high sodium meal ever again!

Take this as a warning! Read your labels, people!
Take care and stay safe and healthy.
Until next time!