Yeah, what's up with that? Suddenly there're wise elders, young elders (?), young senior elders (???)...

Mel, I hope you had a wonderful birthday! I'm sorry I missed it (I usually only try to miss my own). Have a Very Happy New Year!

I want to be a young elder. I'm too young to be a senior.
ROFL

Do you know I am just learning how to make winter squash in my bamboo steamer. Last night I cooked Bok Choi and it was fabulous. Didn't steam it. Stir fried with onions and some Carotino oil.

I don't understand why people refuse to eat veggies. It's the loveliest food on the planet. All that green.

It's like, as I get older, I'm doing stuff that my grandmother did. I don't go and grab packages off the shelf that cook in 2 minutes.

I know it's takes longer to prepare stuff, cook stuff, clean up after, but hey, it's my body and it's a temple.

IT'S A TEMPLE!!

lol

And I was watching tv and they have this chinese pasta thing in a package, where you bring it to work, pour some water into the bowl, micro for 2 minutes, pour the sauce and it's supposed to be delicious.

All I could say while I was watching this commercial was"My goodness, how much sodium is in that package"

I don't cook with salt. I use all the other herbs and stuff but never salt.

And on my birthday (so I am not going off topic here), well on my birthday we went to our favorite Japanese restaurant and they ask you , soup or salad.

Now soup is miso and salad is a little bowl of something with ginger dressing.

It was cold outside so I said miso soup.

Well, I WILL NEVER ORDER THAT AGAIN.

It was like a tablespoon of salt in my mouth.

Yuck.

Oh I have a good question about taking sodium out of soup.

Let's say I buy a can of low sodium chicken broth as a basis for some soup I am making.

The can says 450 of the sodium. As opposed to 900 or so in a regular an of broth. YIKES!!

Is it true that if you put a raw potato in this broth (the one that is 450), that it takes the sodium out of the soup? If this is true, I'm doing this tomorrow.

But do you put the raw potato in the cold soup and leave it for an hour, or do you put the raw potato and cook the soup AND THEN it takes the sodium out?

If indeed this trick does work.

I have no idea.

Anyone who knows, please reply. I want to take more sodium out of our diets.

I'm also learning how to make a complete homemade chicken soup (I know, then I don't have to add any sodium at all). But I do have these cans of Butterball and Swanson's low sodium and I want to use them.

Will the potato trick work?

Thanks much

Melody

I avoid soups in restaurants.... full of MSG and sodium they are as a rule. I just cannot handle that sodium, and MSG makes my feet burn!

Ramen noodles= the same thing.

And I doubt the potato will remove any salt.

Some people use sea salt now for their canned soups, and this reduces some of the sodium but not all by any means.

A soup without salt of some kind tastes really flat to most people.

Ah, so the potato thing is a myth? Thanks much for that one.

Intrinsic factor exists to enable the tiny amounts of B12 to be absorbed from our food. Typically 2-4 micrograms a day.

When intrinsic factor fails.... B12 from food is in such small amounts it won't get absorbed at all.

Taking huge doses like 1mg to 5mg orally, bypasses any need for intrinsic factor. Then the B12 from this high dose is passively absorbed in the GI tract, and if NO food is there to soak it up like a sponge, some will passively (without hooking up to instrinsic factor ) get absorbed that way.

1mg oral is about 500 times the amount found in one meat meal.

If one has intact and functioning intrinsic factor, 5mg doses would probably not be needed for oral supplements. The oral would be aided to some extent by the intrinsic factor. But when people show up HERE... on a NEURO board, we can suppose that things are NOT working properly. The advent of all the acid blocking drugs has inactivated intrinsic factor action because that is acid dependent.

The link here gives pictures to show how B12 is normally absorbed:
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/0301/p979.html

The real problem is that intrinsic factor FAILS in some people. Autoimmune attack to the cells that make it or genetic failure, or overuse and long term use of acid blocking drugs.

I've been using Pink Himalayan /Crystal Salt instead of iodized salt. Tastes better.....and it's better for your body.

http://products.mercola.com/himalayan-salt/

As far as the potato....

When something has a high concentration of salt is put next to a low concentration, some will move osmotically down to the lower end. The amount of liquid in a typical soup, is so much greater than the mass of a potato, I doubt much would be absorbed.

cutting the potato to increase surface area might help...but I would think that only a very salty liquid would put any salt into the potato and it would also be time dependent. This may have become a "myth" or "trick" for when an accidental amount of salt falls in. Once a liquid has a smaller concentration of salt, much less would be absorbed into a potato. One gram of salt in a liter of water is not really very much or concentrated.

Aww man! I missed it... how sad!

Happy belated birthday, Melody!!!

Mrs. D. thanks much for the explanation about intrinsic factor. And I hear you about the over-use of antacids. Everyone that I know takes them (except me). Never needed them. Oh, years ago, maybe I would take a pepsid once in a great while, but not for YEARS. Because of the way I eat, I never get hearburn. Don't want to get heartburn and hope I never get heartburn.

But I think that some people are predisposed to have GERD. I know SEVERAL people who take Nexium, Gaviscon, Axid, etc.etc each and every day. They say "we could never eat a meal unless we take 4 gaviscon with each meal"

Hey, they know their bodies. They say they make LOTS of acid, and it shoots up into their throat unless they use the proton pump inhibitors.

I once said 'do you know you are not absorbing any nutrients because of all the stuff you take with each meal?" They thought I was nuts.

I wasn't!!!

lol