Jeremiah's food journal

By Suzy Sorensen, nutritionist

Suzy Sorensen, a nutritionist at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota gave two teens advice about how they eat. Photo courtesy of Sorensen.

If someone is trying to improve their blood pressure, there are two main things they can do with their food choices to help. One strategy is to limit salt intake, the other is to increase fruit and vegetable intake.

Jeremiah, 15, of Minneapolis, has high blood pressure.

Day 1

Breakfast: one egg, four pieces of candy.
Lunch: steak & gravy, ramen noodles.
Dinner: chips, six small pieces of pizza, lemonade.

Day 2

Breakfast: eggs & sausage.
Lunch: pizza with ranch dressing, apple, three packages of ramen noodles.
Dinner: nine fried chicken wings, mashed potatoes, green beans and two handfuls of gummy worms.

Day 3

Breakfast: bagels with cream cheese, muffins.
Lunch: pizza with ranch dressing and an apple.
Dinner: spaghetti and mom’s Chinese stir fry — meat, mushrooms, and veggies — with rice.

Suzie says

Hi Jeremiah,

If someone is trying to improve their blood pressure, there are two main things they can do with their food choices to help. One strategy is to limit salt intake, the other is to increase fruit and vegetable intake.

Salt doesn’t just mean the salt shaker; certain foods are pretty high in salt, including most sauces, soups, canned goods, processed meats, and cheese. It looks like there are a few of these items in your journal: the ramen, spaghetti sauce, gravy, cheese on pizza, ranch dressing, etc. I’m not sure if these are school meals or home, but if you have a choice you might try low sodium soups, pull some of the cheese off the pizza, choose a burger or sandwich rather than pizza, use a small portion of dressing, etc. just to decrease the salt a little.

Even with canned vegetables you can drain the juice for the can and boil them in water instead to get less salt.

You already have a variety of fruit and veggies in there which is great! Apple, green bean, potato, and stir-fry. Did you know the recommendation for men is to choose 5-9 servings a day (of fruits and vegetables)?

It’s a pretty lofty goal. I usually ask kids to think about how they can add one or 2 fruit or veggie helpings each day. One idea is to have a fruit at each meal and a vegetable too at lunch and dinner, if possible. Servings are small, like half a cup of cooked vegetable is one serving, so if you like green beans, you could have a big helping and get extra servings that way.

The candy is not a problem as long as it’s not instead of a healthy food. ;)