Consuelo H. Wilkins, M.D.
Recently I was giving a presentation to a group of older adults about the importance of having a healthy diet and exercising regardless of age. The audience was mostly African American women who were very engaged and seemed to enjoy the presentation. We talked about increasing the variety of fruits and vegetables to include more colorful options and about eating whole grain foods.
Things were going very well until I said “it”. “It” is something that challenges the foundation of soul food. But “it” needed to be said so I did. “You don’t have to put meat in your greens or black-eyed peas.” The room became silent. A few people had strange looks and frowns on their faces. For a few seconds, I thought about leaving but my coat and keys were in the back of the room.
So I decided to be brave and ask what they thought of the idea of meatless greens. Apparently some of them had accepted the idea of smoked turkey instead of pork in their greens or peas (note the word accepted, not embraced). But why in the world would anybody want greens without meat?
Finally a younger woman (who later told me she was 78 years old) stood and said “greens will just be bitter and tasteless with no meat so how are you going to fix that?” Another woman in the audience told everyone that her granddaughter made some greens with garlic, onions, and some cane sugar that wasn’t too bad.
I was thankful for the somewhat positive comment and added that garlic, onions, paprika, and olive oil were great options to season greens and peas. I wanted to move quickly from vegetables to whole wheat bread and pasta before things got worse when another woman raised her hand to speak. She proudly stated that she loved garlic and used it often in her cooking. I was grateful for her comments and smiled widely. Then she noted you can get garlic salt really cheap at the local grocery stores.
Just when I thought things were improving, in comes the dreaded garlic salt. “You have to be very careful with garlic salt”, I said. “It’s not really garlic. It’s flavored salt.”
I heard a few people say “really” and “oh”. I explained that a teaspoon of salt has 2,300mg of sodium and a teaspoon of garlic salt has 1,500 mg of sodium while a teaspoon of garlic powder has only 1 mg of sodium. I reminded the audience that the recommended daily intake of sodium is less than 2,400mg of sodium and people with high blood pressure should consume even less sodium.
The group seemed excited to learn this new information and they were very surprised about the amount of sodium in garlic salt. We then talked about some alternatives to salt such as paprika, onion powder, thyme, oregano, and Mrs. Dash. Someone mentioned onion salt and I informed them that if a product is called “something salt,” it’s more likely flavored salt than anything else.
After finishing the presentation, I answered more questions and I was delighted to see how enthusiastic many of them were about staying healthy. We distributed exercise manuals and resistance bands then some of my team members performed exercise demonstrations.
I was very pleased with the event and was thankful for the lively discussions. Maybe next time I will tell them how much sodium is in a tablespoon of hot sauce and a whole dill pickle. (The answer is 405mg and 1,480mg. Sorry.)