If You Only Buy
One Special Cook Book -
Buy This One!

There are a lot of cook books out there for low salt diets, a lot on low fat diets, and very few on low salt/low fat diets. Nevertheless this is the one I think that is most important even though it focuses on the low salt issue.

Why? The salt shaker is not your problem! There are estimates that only 20-30% of the salt in the American diet comes from salt added at the table. It is the salt in processed foods which is the biggest contributor and conventional baked products, while not tasting salty, make a large contribution to salt intake.

For many types of food items items one can find low salt alternatives, although admittedly a limited assortment. But the options for baked goods at most retail outlets is rather slim. In the US even simple no salt bread is hard to find and if found usually in only one version. In addition many baked products also contain large amounts of fat.

It is not a simple alternative to make your own baked products and just leave out the salt. For yeast-based products, leaving out the salt affects the texture for salt actually interacts with yeast during rising and baking. In the case of baking soda and baking powder-based recipes, the baking soda/powder is itself a high level sodium source. After endless experimentation, Don Gazzinaga has developed a set of recipes that are no salt or low salt. He includes instructions for bread machine use as well as oven baking where appropriate.

Some of the recipes given are high in fat, but he clearly gives nutrition data so you can skip those or try to modify them. He also gives options for diabetics. I have found no better source of baking recipes for the LS/LF diet.