by Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, Director of the Chronic Disease Prevention Division of the Health Department

Every year when I was seeing patients as a family doctor, I would dread July 5th. Inevitably at least one of my patients would come in with a dangerously high blood pressure or blood sugar after overdoing it at a July 4th picnic. Chips, potato salad, burgers with all the fixings, and a few too many beers or sodas all conspired to push people who usually watched their diets reasonably well into dangerous territory and unwanted ER visits.

These days close to half of adults have high blood pressure and a third have pre-diabetes or diabetes. So as you plan your July 4th menu, here are a few tips to keep yourself and your friends and relatives from having to deal with the consequences on July 5th:

• Put out flavored seltzer in place of sugary sodas. Seltzer comes in a huge variety of fun flavors now and if you don’t serve soda, your guests won’t miss it (or drink it).
• Instead of chips, try vegetable platters with humus or bean dip for a fraction of the salt, but all the crunch of a good snack.
• Look for potato and other salads and salad recipes with olive oil and vinegar dressings instead of mayo. They’ll need less salt because of the sourness of the vinegar and save some calories as well.
• Cut up a watermelon and serve other fruit for an old fashioned, healthier dessert.
• Use small plates and bowls to encourage people to eat lightly. They can always come back for more, but most people eat a bit less from small plates because they pause long enough to start to feel full between servings.