Food for Special Diets

My husband's doctor expressed concern at his blood pressure numbers during his last visit. He had gone from well in the normal range to borderline Stage 1/Stage 2 hypertension. Woah.

Despite the fact he is young (27), in a healthy weight range, and is not sedentary, his blood pressure has skyrocked. His family as a big history of high blood pressure; nearly everybody on both sides has to be medicated for it at some point in their lives. He knew this, but had never really thought about it, as his other risk factors were low. Who knew that his genes would flip the on switch before he turned 30?

While he is willing to go on medication if he must, he did ask our doctor if he could try alternative methods first. She has given him a month to try to sort it out with diet and exercise. If she is not impressed with his numbers by that time, he will have to try medication. She sent him away with an armload of pamphlets and advice.

Since I do the majority of the cooking and meal planning in the house, a lot of the paying attention to what is in our food will fall to me. When he first went over what was in the pamphlets, I thought that there was not much we were going to be able to change when it came to what we cook at home. But as I delved deeper, I realized that there are many smaller changes that we can make, and those changes may not be cheap.

Of course, his health is more important than saving money, but we *are* still on a budget. I'm eager to see how this changes ourgrocery bill. Since avoiding salt is paramount for controlling blood pressure, we will be backing off of our biggest vice of eating out. I'm also going to have to pay a lot more attention to labels- much like sugar, salt is hidden in a lot of foods. Will the money we save by eating at home more balance out the salmon, flax seeds, and fresh produce I will be buying instead? Time will tell! I'll update as we continue this journey.

Inquiring minds want to know- Have you ever had to change how you eat for health reasons? How did this affect your budget? Did you have to spend as much as you expected? Did it offset other costs? (ie: not eating out as much, not having to take medication, etc?) Pop me an e-mail at Frugal.Homemaker.Plus (at) gmail (dot) com or leave a comment!