NaCl:  Friend or Foe

            by Lana Robinson-Sum

 

When my mother found out she had high blood pressure five years ago, the doctor told her to reduce her sodium intake. Okay, sure, I thought. She’d eat fewer potato chips, cut down on the bacon, buy some low-sodium soy sauce. Oh, boy was I wrong. Have you ever had salt-free pancakes?

            In another life, my mom must have been a Jehovah’s Witness missionary. That obsessive, one-track mentality turned what could have been a simple dietary adjustment into the beginning of the end: the end of white bread and carbonara, instant hot chocolate, juice from concentrate, pleasure, indulgence, and sanity. What was I left with? Nuts. Nuts and whole grains, and a house full of Dansko clogs.

            What do Dansko clogs have to do with high blood pressure? Everything. Because when mother-dearest entered the cult of health-conscious-middle-aged-ex-PTA moms, she couldn’t just stop at salt, heaven forbid! Clogs represented everything right about her new image: orthopedic, simple yet eloquent, politically correct yet leather-smelling, and the perfect complement to those hot hot hot super-high rise red, purple, and magenta mom-jeans. So she ruthlessly banished the patent leather heels of yesteryear to the far side of the closet, and ushered in pair after pair of that deliciously sexy Norwegian footwear. But it didn’t stop there.

The day she got a membership at the gym, I knew something had gone terribly, utterly awry. Only months before, if you had asked her what a hamstring was, she would have either said something butchers use to package ham, or she’d have replied in a huff, “That’s not a fair question – English isn’t my first language.” (She knows five words in Mandarin: butt, chicken, naughty, too expensive, and her own last name.)

            I should have been happy for her. I mean, come on, it’s every thirteen-year-old’s dream to have a framed picture of her mom and a nice naked man running the Bay to Breakers hanging proudly above the living room mantle, right? Oh ho no, I vowed under my breath as I threw back a shot of cran-rasberry juice. It burned, but I barely winced. A steely gaze overcame my ordinarily chill features. I was itching to fight back, to regain the status quo, and to go hella dumb on the transfats.

            So I set up drafting a plan of attack. I was commander in chief, general, colonel, lieutenant, and private of my one-woman army (my cats Toonces and Hoppi were still training at Annapolis.) I figured the best strategy would be to strike hard, often, and where it hurt. Don’t give the enemy camp time to recover. Wipe out the leaders, cut the tracks, burn the fields. Throw pellets of salt at them until they all get strokes and die!!

            And here were some of my tried and true, or just tried, tactics:

 

GUILT:

            “Mom, do you really need another pair of red clogs? Children are starving in China!”

            “No, these aren’t red, they’re burnt sienna. And you shop all the time, Lana.”

            “Yeah, but at least the stuff I buy is attractive. I mean, do you see yourself in the mirror?”

            “How can my own daughter be so cruel? Do you realize I was in labor with you for 12,392 hours???”

            Lesson: Never try to outdo a mother in guilt.

 

THREATS:

            “If you make me eat another leaf of kale, I’ll get a tattoo, I swear.”

            “Oh! Let’s get mommy-daughter matching ones!”

            “You disgust me.”
            “Want more chard?”

            Lesson: Leafy greens trump teen angst. Amino acids trump leafy greens. Diamonds trump clubs. Shokoff!

 

BEGGING:

            “Mom, for my birthday this year can we please please have regular pasta?”

            Then with an I’m-not-mad-just-disappointed look, “If a plate full of empty calories is your idea of a good birthday, I guess. But just this once.” And I was naive enough to think I had won.

            “How’s dinner?” She asked with a slightly evil grin as I forked my food. I looked down. To my dismay, amidst the four colors of vegetables and seemingly pure pasta, sinister gray strands of whole-wheat noodles twisted their grainy coils.

            “MOM!”

            “What? You know, this is my day too. Aren’t you going to thank me for squeezing you out fifteen years ago?”

            Well if she was going to play dirty, then all bets were officially off.

            Lesson: Not every tactic has a lesson dude. Who am I, Brother Grimm?

 

SABOTAGE:

[Disclaimer: this is not for amateurs. And if my mom asks you, it’s also completely fictional.]

            When things would get really crummy, like after three nights of cream-of-turnip-and-brussel-sprout-stew leftovers, I donned my black ninja’s apron and stole into the kitchen undetected. With the fervor of a rabid rat, I dug through the bottom cooking drawer until my trembling fingers grazed the cobwebs and ant carcasses that covered our dear forsaken cylinder of salt.

            My mouth began to water.

            First I opened the fridge. I salted the almond butter, I sprinkled the glasses of broccoli water, and I seasoned my mother’s homemade breakfast porridge of barley flakes, 7-grain cereal, dates, dried mango, raisins, quinoa, peanuts, and aduki beans. Then I turned to the freezer, which has oft been likened to a squirrel’s heaven, except much colder and with too many twisty-ties. I opened the door and a watermelon-sized bag of peanuts (salt free) almost gave me a concussion. Wary of more booby traps, I proceeded with caution... well actually I recklessly gnawed open more bags of peanuts, and unscrewed jar after jar of cashews, chopped almonds, sunflower seeds, and walnuts that had occupied 90% of the freezer (the other 10% were frozen peas, which of course I spared; no bowl of Annie’s mac n’ cheese is complete without them!) Needless to say, destruction was complete. I took no nut/legume hostages that night. Thence, the enemy fields sufficiently sowed with salt, I retreated victorious to my room.

            Lesson: The bratty teen always gets the last laugh. Take that, mommy poo!