I agree, as long as you are longing for the salt flavor, you won't notice the other flavors. My favorite way to dress pasta is to sautee some garlic, add chopped fresh tomatoes just until warmed, toss in the pasta, add copious amounts of chopped fresh basil, some pepper and freshly grated parmesan, yummy. Those fresh homegrown SunGold cherry tomatoes are lovely for this purpose. Of course I don't like the cooked tomato sauces very much, so.... And, as has been mentioned, if the tomatoes weren't wonderful, the sauce won't be. Sometimes canned tomatoes really are better than fresh. My doctor told me yesterday that average humans have 10,000 taste buds. Those regenerate approximately every 10 days to 2 weeks, so we get a whole new set of taste buds. If you don't get the new taste buds accustomed to salt, you won't miss it after a few weeks, and will even notice the salty flavor more, so there's hope. As for the tomato powder, I haven't tried it. I sliced tomatoes, put them in the dehydrator. 40 HOURS LATER, they were still flesible but certainly couldn't be powdered. And yes, they were homegrown tomatoes and yes, I have a very nice Excaliber dehydrator, so that's not it. It just didn't work and was a waste of time and perfectly good tomatoes. Well, it wasn't, because I re-hydrated the tomatoes by throwing them in soup, but they couldn't be powdered. so, I'd suggest you buy some of the commercially prepared stuff first and see if it helps, then you could try to make your own, hopefully with better success than I had. Also, if you get tomatoes that are wonderful in season, you can just wash them and toss them in the freezer in a bag. When they thaw, the skins slip right off and you have really good tomatoes. If you have any freezer room, LOL. I can mine and that way I can add no salt at all and still have wonderful home grown tomatoes in the middle of winter. Annie

There are a number of low-sodium members who have a lot of great information and have freely shared it in the past - as posted above. I always suggest sticking to whole foods and skip the processed foods as the quickest way to avoided added sodium in your food. You can instantly cut sodium by using less of something. You can make a grilled cheese sandwich with half of a slice of cheese. Or better yet, find a low-sodium cheese and use grated cheese - about 1/4-1/2 ounce. You can use a stick of mozzarella string cheese (170 mg. sodium) and grate it for topping a 12-inch homemade pizza. Or, grate 1/4 of a stick of mozzarella string cheese (42.5 mg sodium), and that is enough for a grilled sandwich, or as a topping for any Mexican entrée, Italian entrée, salads, etc. A trip to your local library and you will find any number of low-sodium cookbooks if you need inspiration and some new recipes. I also like to have nutritional information for recipes printed in cookbooks, and can adjust them accordingly to lower the sodium, if necessary. I'm a big fan of Salt-Free Mrs. Dash seasoning blends and use them for all kinds of things. I make potato chips and sweet potato chips in the microwave - no added salt. I dehydrate zucchini slices with Mrs. Dash Salt-Free seasoning blends on them for a chip substitute. I also use a lot of herbs (fresh and dried) out of my garden. I use Coconut Aminos because it is soy-free and less sodium than soy sauce. In order to avoid added sodium in tomato products, I use low-sodium tomato powder (The Spice House and other sources on-line) and make tomato sauce and tomato paste, pizza sauce, pasta sauce, and can even make ketchup and bbq sauce with a few pantry ingredients. Some commercial low-sodium products just have too many questionable ingredients in them - even if they ARE low-sodium. Better off making your own! Make sure you have some Hain Sodium-free Baking Powder, and ENER-G Baking Soda (double the amount to substitute for regular baking soda) for low-sodium baking. Try making your own vegetable, beef, and chicken broth - they are far tastier than store-bought. I use homemade broth I freeze in cubes to make a quick pan sauce. Melt a couple beef or chicken cubes and bring to a simmer. Add a pat of unsalted butter and heat through. The butter will lightly thicken the broth - no additional thickener needed. Add some herbs or spices, but cracked pepper may be all it needs. For a Type II diabetic, the less high-glycemic foods, like flour, the better. Try using almond flour and coconut flour in baked goods, instead of high-glycemic wheat flour. Go wheat-free..... I try to make 3 new recipes each week, so that helps keep me interested in new dishes and new ways to make old favorites. Another thing.... it's a LOW sodium diet, not a NO sodium diet. We all require some sodium in our diet to function properly. I'd just rather have it naturally-occurring in real food (even if it's just a small amount for flavor). I'd suggest skipping the low-sodium salt products, which can cause a whole bunch of other issues. Get creative.... Can't have celery? Use celery seed for lots of celery flavor. Lemon and lime juice are your "friends", OR True Lemon and True Lime crystalized lemon and lime product which has 0-mg of sodium and lots of flavor. Make low-sodium breads and baked goods - especially those made with coconut flour and almond flour. Good luck on your search! -Grainlady

I wouldn't consider myself a paint snob, I've used just about every major paint on the market, Behr, Valspar, Martha Stewart Everday (Kmart), Restoration Hardware, Glidden, Olympic, Kilz Casual Colors, Dutch Boy, Easy Living (Sears) and a few upper ends like Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams and Pratt and Lambert. I'm just not a fan of Valspar. I've never had a problem with coverage. It goes on great. My problem is that their Valspar premium eggshell doesn't hold up to the wear and tear of MY family. I've got 3 kids aged 8 and lower and 2 beagles and DH. I used Valspar in nearly every room in my last house. Lowes was the closest. We lived there for a year and I touched up when we moved, after that we ended up renting out to a single woman. She wasn't hard on the house by any means, but I still had to repaint nearly every room when she moved out after a year and we were selling. In my current entry hall and stairway wall, everyday scuffs and crayon hieroglyphics just don't wash off. When I have touched up, the sheen appears different, so it is obvious where the touch ups have been done. Yes, I used the correct paint. I'm anal about labeling. I painted in July '08, so it's been 14 months and it looks like it's been 10 years. In Valspar's defense, I've got it in my boys' rooms and it seems ok there, but then, they mostly just sleep there. I painted our downstairs powder room in BM Natura and that paint has really held up. I frequently wipe it down and to be honest, I just use the vinegar windex or antibacterial wipes out of sheer laziness, but everything wipes right up. No color change, no burnishing, no rubbing color off the walls. I haven't even had to touch up yet. That's that bathroom that they wash off their various art projects, mud and you-don't-really-want-to-know-how-that-got-there with 2 boys in the house. So I guess Valspar is just fine if it's a lightly used room. I've had 4 houses in the past 12 years. I painted each one myself, every room, at least once, and usually more for a color change or to tone it down for resale. I'm at the point in my life where I need the paint to perform where I'm not repainting every year due to excessive wear. I haven't even finished painting my current house and I'm dreading the idea of NEEDING to paint again versus WANTING to paint. It seems that paying more upfront and not needing to repaint is actually the cheaper way to go. I think Fine Paints of Europe's motto is something like, "There's nothing more expensive than cheap paint." If someone is looking for an affordable, durable paint, I hear that Ace's paint with scotchgard is a great value. Low price with great washability. I can't honestly remember what it's called, maybe Sensations? Check out the paint board, they know. I'm considering this for my family room and kitchen/nook. Kathe

"his dog treats (which is chicken jerky/dehydrated chicken breasts) are all loaded with sodium" Tammy, I lost two dogs to kidney failure within about a year of each other and I highly suspect the jerky treats I was giving them was a big part of it. I discovered later they were very high in salt. I switched to other pet treats but (and this might sound a bit gross) I always licked them to make sure they didn't taste salty. Well it was just hard to get good quality treats without salt. So I decided to try and make my own, and I bought a food dehydrator. The only thing that goes into my dogs' treats is lean meat, no flavoring, no salt, nothing so I don't need to worry about it anymore. It's actually pretty easy. I get the butcher to slice up meat nice and thin then I cut it into smaller strips and put it into the multilevel dehydrator, switch it on until they are done. I keep a bag in the fridge (not even sure if it's necessary) and put other bags into the freezer to take out when the fridge bag runs out. My dogs love them, no added flavors or salt needed.