Saturday's Internet Edition, May 17, 2008.
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Stack, who founded Low Sodium Connections, is a native of Kansas and has lived in Thomasville for 25 years. She worked a little retail as a schoolchild, but most of her career has been spent at Sara Lee Corp. in Winston-Salem, where she worked in information technology. Stack didn’t have much of an interest in nutrition either until 2002, when her mother, Bette Ford, was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
“After I took Mother home from the hospital, I went to a supermarket in Winston-Salem and spent six hours looking for food products that fit into the diet her doctor had recommended for her,” Stack remembered. “After all that time I only bought $20 worth of groceries. Half of what was labeled low sodium in there actually wasn’t.”
After discovering the problem, Stack got together with her mother’s dietician and then looked for the appropriate products on the Internet. She realized that food servings with 140 or less milligrams of sodium were hard to find in area retail stores, so she decided to open a store that would be a solution to that problem.
Low Sodium Solutions opened in Winston-Salem in 2004. In 2006 Stack added food products for diabetes patients to her inventory after Ford was diagnosed with diabetes, following the removal of her pancreas. Later she further expanded her inventory to accommodate customers who were allergic to wheat.
Stack originally had someone else manage her store while she worked at her job with Sara Lee. Eventually, that job was eliminated, Since closing the Winston-Salem store and setting up shop on Lexington Avenue, Stack is beginning to see some results of being located near TMC.
“The hospital is starting to refer people over here,” Stack said.
Her mother is involved in an exercise program at TMC. Ford, 77, has lost over 100 pounds since being diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
“My mom’s heart has gone from 35 percent pumping capacity to 85 percent pumping capacity,” Stack said. “As she has gotten older, she is more limber and her health is much better. Her heart doctor attributes this pretty much to the food that she has been eating. There isn’t much in the store that hasn’t been ‘mother-tested.’”
As of Jan. 1, Low Sodium Solutions had 474 different items. Since then Stack has added at least 10 gluten-free items. There are 22 different flavors of low sodium soup. There is quite an assortment of canned foods, including low sodium tuna, salmon and sardines. Varieties of dip, as well as pickles, free of excess sodium and sugar, are available in the store and, according to Stack, nowhere else in the area.
“Our old fashioned soda pop with no salt in it tastes just like what people used to get in a drug store,” she said. “I’m also the only store that I know of that carries 90 percent fat-free sausage and 95 percent fat free ground beef.”
Stack has never had serious health problems, but she still eats primarily the food she sells in the store. She also gets vegetarians, weight lifters, weight watchers and other health-conscious people as customers. Some of her customers come to Thomasville from Winston-Salem, where they had shopped at the original Low Sodium Solutions. Her unique selection has a lot to do with this, but so does her service.
“I’ll let some of the customers sit in the chair, while I go around the store and pick up their items for them” Stack said. “I’ll also put the groceries in the car for them.”
The store’s telephone number is 765-5898. When Stack is not in the store, the call is transferred to her cell. Stack has been known to drive five minutes from her home to the store, outside of its regular hours, to serve a customer. The store is open Monday through Sunday, from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. On Tuesday and Thursday she stays open until 6:30.
“People get hooked on salt as babies,” Stack said, as she noted “I really feel this store is something that’s going to help people. It will save some lives in the long run.”
Stack pointed to a document from the American Medical Association that said, “Based on overwhelming evidence, the American Medical Association has concluded that by cutting sodium consumption in half an estimated 150,000 lives in the United States would be saved annually.”
She keeps the shelves with merchandise from being too high or too low, so that it won’t be hazardous to people with heart disease to reach for the products.
“Most of my products are natural and organic,” Stack said. “This is a whole new world for me, but it’s something I really enjoy. I’ve had people crying in this store and telling me I’ve saved their lives.”
Staff Writer Kevin Reid can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 230, or at reid@tvilletimes.com.