Year 2, Day 33: Soda and Sodium

A frequent reader of the site wrote in to ask about the sodium issues being on my diet, and the truth is that it is something I've worried about in the past. The RDA recommends you keep it under 2400 MG of Sodium a day, which I suppose wouldn't be so hard if you could have all the sugar you want. It seems for some reason that when things have the sugar taken out (like Coke Zero) they still need sodium. To me, it's amazing that calories, the basic component of all food that human beings need to stay alive, can be removed from food products, but they can't get rid of the sodium. Go figure. Let's talk peppadews— a serving size is listed as 1/3 of a cup, which is probably about 6 or 7 peppadews (I probably eat twice that). The Cabs in one serving is 9G and that has 80MG of Sodium, or twice what a can of Coke Zero has in it. ON the plus side, the peppadews contain dietary fiber (very important tradeoff) and vitamins A and C. It could be lower in sugar (8 Gs) but come on, you've got to live a little.

Breakfast
1 cup Kashi Go Lean!
1/4 cup Grape Nuts
1 cup Unsweetened Soy Milk
1 small banana
Tea

Snack:
25 Pistachios
1 banana
2 Tsps Peanut Butter (S.C.)

Lunch:
Breast of Chicken
Emily's Tomato-less Guacamole
6 Tortilla Strips
String Beans
Peppadews
1 oz. Cracker Barrel Cheese

Dinner
93% Sirloin Hamburger
Stir-Fry Cabbage
Peppadews
Salad with Feta

Now that the days are going to be longer, I can tell that it's going to be harder to resist my endless prowling of the kitchen, the preferred headquarters for kid-watching in the park. If I'm smart I'll actually be OUTSIDE with the kids, which then will make it better and easier to consume more pistachios or whatever we keep around the house. Which reminds me of an important rule: if it's not in your house, you won't eat it. Remember that as you spring forward.