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MegaHeart Officers
MegaHeart.com donates all proceeds from the sale of The No Salt, Lowest Sodium Cookbook at this website to heart transplant research.
Hello, I'm MegaHeart.com's founder, Donald A. Gazzaniga. I'm also a CHF heart patient who was told he had less than a year to live when first diagnosed. Few options were presented to me at that time.
That could have been a very depressing time, since I could barely walk, breathe or do much of anything. After visiting with Dr. Michael Fowler, at Stanford Heart Transplant Clinic, I researched into lowered sodium diets. Seven years ago I found very little available. Nothing on the web, a few books titled "Low Salt," which weren't really low sodium and of course, very few products in the stores.
Since I had cooked most of my life either in the kitchen or on the road, and always without salt (More about this at end), I decided to set down my long-time recipes and many new creations. What I hadn't been doing was cooking with low sodium ingredients, a problem that exists for many to this day. Needless to say, I was amazed when I learned how much sodium I had been consuming – and all without added salt.
I learned from Dr. Michael Fowler at Stanford, that it had always been thought that a very low sodium diet would help, but that few had ever really tried it and stuck with it. That latter piece of news was and remains important. We can't eat 500 mg of sodium on Monday and cap off Tuesday with a few thousand. Our new lifestyle is just that: A New Lifestyle.
After about a year into my collection of recipes, and sticking to a meal-planning guide I had devised for my own choice of well under 500 mg a day of sodium -- I found myself doing much better. I was walking, working and doing things I wasn't supposed to be able to do. Then, Dr. Fowler challenged me to get my recipes published. At first that wasn't an easy task although I had had books published before. But St. Martin's Press took the plunge into this brand-new field and published what turned out to be and still is, the only book of its kind in the world. I followed up that book with The No Salt, Lowest Sodium Baking Book.
Megaheart.com was founded before either book was published. It was the first full fledged salt free recipe website on the web. It started slowly but today it has over 355,000 unique visitors a year with more than 2.7 million long-term page visits. Millions more "hit" the site each year. I recieve upwards of a hundred emails a day asking about recipes, sodium, etc. or signing on for the monthly newsletter. I wasn't sure what I was getting into but it has thrived, helped thousands of heart patients as well as Meniere's, kidney, liver and hypertension patients. Both the website and the books are recommended by thousands of nurses, doctors and registered dietitians. Megaheart.com has become a 24/7 operation. It is not a part-time site and it's totally free for you to use, ask questions, seek recipe and nutrient advice.
As for my personal efforts? Just how well am I doing now? My heart has reduced in size from 7.4 cm to 5.6 cm. My EF has jumped up from 22 to 50%. Yes, I drive, walk, hike a bit, boat and do many other things as before.
As Megaheart's mission states, MegaHeart.com is designed to enhance the quality of life for anyone who has been medically prescribed to "cut out the salt." I hope you find the book(s) and the website useful.
Sincerely,
Donald A. Gazzaniga
More About Don's Cooking Without Salt