a solution to my bp woes?

My sister Barb sent me an article from today's Courier-Journal touting the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet. It claims that your BP will drop dramatically in two-weeks. I have spent the entire day reading stuff on the internet about it. Of course someone has written a book  about it and has their own site.

I don't see too much different here than any other diet plan I've seen. Actually, it could be the generic "insert disease here" diet. Heavy in fruits and veggies, whole grains and fiber. Low fat dairy and lean meats. Tons of chicken and fish. Minimal sugar and fat. Their slant is that it's very low in salt and high in potassium. So no pickles, olives, kraut, condiments, ect. Those italic sentences are my Achilles heel.

I'd like to give it a try but my family would go bonkers. I've been trying for two years to get more veggies on the table. Mostly I buy them, and they get thrown in the compost bin. They aren't cooked, or worse, my sister who does the bulk of the cooking will cook six spears of asparagus for the whole family. I can't tell you the number of times I've shouted make the whole damn pound for pete's sake.

I perused the recipes in the booklet I downloaded (red link) and for the most part I already do many of these things. I was surprised that they used celery in the chicken and tuna salad because it has 88 milligrams of sodium per serving. Maybe it brings other things to the nutrition table. But their recipes also call for 6.5 tablespoons of no-fat (yuck!) mayo for two cans of tuna or 3.245 cups of chopped chicken. I think I'll stick with my three tablespoons of real mayo or none at all. Even yogurt would be better,

I've never made a zucchini lasagna, but I have made veggie lasagna. They use part-skim mozz and fat-free cottage cheese (ick!). I use mozz and ricotta fresh from Calendra's that's part-skim. So except in fat, it should be equal or better than theirs. Another one is potato salad. I've been making a red-skinned potato salad like that for decades.

Then I read out loud the receipe for turkey meatloaf and my sister nearly vomited. (Well they do put ketchup in it. That's gross.) She doesn't realize that frequently I've been giving her 50/50 beef/turkey ground meat. So don't tell her.

Bran flakes and whole wheat toast in the same meal. Whole wheat cherrios and whole wheat raisin bagel in the same meal. If I ate that much at 6 am I'd explode. One or the other and ever brand flakes. I'd rather eat the box. And  let's not get me started on skim milk. We drank that nasty carnation stuff when I was a kid. Milk water. Been there, done that, survived. Ain't doing it again.

I searched the net There's got to be more interesting recipes than in this booklet. The some on the Mayo clinic page sound better. And on the Mrs Dash site. I wonder if that's where they got the name, from the diet? I found a few more too.

I love to do the immersion and lower my BP in two weeks but that won't happen. A) my family will revolt and B) I won't stick with it. Maybe I can sneak one DASH recipe in a week. Then maybe two. More than likely it will take three years to sneak in the plan at lunch and dinner. Breakfast, on the other hand will be the ultimate challenge.