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Reduce Sodium in your Diet
The currently suggested daily dose of sodium for an adult is 2,400 mg a day. This is equivalent to about 1 teaspoon of table salt. It is estimated that the average person in the United States actual consumes about 4,000 mg per day. Where does it all come from?
About 75% of the sodium in our diet comes from processed foods. Here is a potential scenario.
- Breakfast: 1 serving of Bran Flakes with 1% milk. Sounds very healthy, and contains 410 mg of sodium
- Morning Snack: Bran Muffin and a small bottle of apple juice; 315 mg
- Brown Bag Lunch: 1 sandwich (whole wheat bread and salmon with mayo), a small salad with dressing, and water; 875 mg
- Supper: 1/2 cup canned tomato soup, a 100 g haddock fillet, 1/2 can of peas or carrots or corn, 1 serving of instant rice; 1,400 mg
Total for the day = 3,000 mg, over your limit despite the fact that you never used the salt shaker, and it all looks healthy.
One of the big problems is the canned stuff. The peas had 250 mg, the soup 800 mg. Even the seemingly healthy muffin had 280 mg. Why so much sodium? In some cases it is for flavouring. In the case of the muffin, it is the baking soda used to make the muffin. Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) is used in baking since it reacts with other components to release carbon dioxide, that helps dough "rise."
With so much "hidden" sodium in our food supply, how can we reduce our sodium intake?
- READ THE LABELS
- Avoid canned foods
- Buy fresh, plain frozen, or canned "with no salt added" vegetables
- Use fresh poultry, fish, and lean meat, rather than canned or processed types
- Use herbs, spices, and salt-free seasoning blends in cooking and at the table
- Cook rice, pasta, and hot cereals without salt
- Cut back on instant or flavored rice, pasta, and cereal mixes, which usually have added salt
- Avoid "convenience" foods, or choose ones that are lower in sodium (cut back on frozen dinners, pizza, packaged mixes, canned soups or broths, and salad dressings — these often have a lot of sodium)
- Rinse canned foods, such as tuna, to remove some of the sodium
- When available, buy low- or reduced-sodium, or no-salt-added versions of foods
- Choose ready-to-eat breakfast cereals that are lower in sodium
- Sea salt may be better than table salt, but it still counts in the sodium column (sea salt is about 30% sodium, whereas table salt is about 40%)
Here are some additional horror stories:
- 40 g of SPAM has 1,600 mg of sodium
- 1/2 can of canned spaghetti has 900 mg
- 1/2 box of Kraft Dinner (oh no!!!) has 820 mg
- a locally produced hamburger bun that I checked out had 480 mg (baking soda again?)
- one dill pickle had 370 mg
- one cup of Clamato or Tomato juice had between 800 and 900 mg
- 15 ml (1 tablespoon) of commercial salad dressings had between 100 and 300 mg
Some good news:
- one serving of granola had only 24 mg
- one serving of Red River cooked cereal only had 4 mg
- one large brown egg has 55 mg (that's the way nature designed it)
- olive oil, sunflower oil, and canola oil normally have NO sodium in them
- a can of Pepsi only had 15 mg of sodium (but I still won't drink it!)
- fresh fruit juices do not usually have much sodium
- tuna seems to have less sodium than salmon
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Be kind to your heart
Less Sodium = Less High Blood Pressure
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