Finding and Eating Low Salt Food

While we have been checking labels, and trying for both low sodium and low fat, we noticed many foods with lower fat have higher sodium, and many foods with lower sodium might have more fat.  It appears many foods are made to taste good, and something will be added.  But, not every low sodium food has high fat.  You have to read the labels. And yes, even read the reduced sodium food labels.

When checking the label remember the company that packaged the food has the intent of making sales, so the lowest possible numbers will be used.  This means you should first look at the serving size, and see if t conforms to what you consume at one time.  Low serving sizes allows the company to use low numbers, but if you eat one and a half as much as their serving size you take in one and a half the sodium listed.

There are resources to help you, and one of them is your doctor.  After that, making sensible purchases in the supermarket is in order.  Then, cooking the food and transforming it into tasty dishes is a real necessity.  You definitely want our food to be flavorful.  Finally, going no salt is a difficult, albeit a real, possibility.  If your doctor concurs, or if you simply have a daily allotment of sodium, consider a no salt meal to offset one where you go a little over.

The second item shown below is a shopping guide, the others are cookbooks.

The rating of restaurant meals, including fast food restaurants, for popular chain restaurants is included in the book that rates eating out.  I highly recommend the first book shown.

Sodium per serving varies by brand, and sometimes those bargain brands are best.  Yes, they can be lower in sodium because the more that is added to a product the higher its price has to be.  So, do not wave off the bargain brands and assume they are inferior.  Read the labels.

Fruits and vegetables in their nature state have nothing added.  Fresh produce is the best choice.  Frozen and canned vegetables might have additives, so read the label. 

If you like the convenience of having frozen vegetables available, freeze them yourself.  Then you know nothing was added.  Place them in containers or freezer bags and enjoy them later.  This can be important if you must have food at home for extended periods when you are snowed in, or otherwise unable to get fresh fruits and vegetables,

Eating out can be problematic.  Most food is prepared with salt added.   I even asked the doctor about grilled food thinking I had an alternative.  But the response was that the food is seasoned and grilled in butter to give it the good taste.  So, ask for no salt to be added, and realize you still might have some.  In my case I am allowed a decent amount of sodium, and was told that a once a week excesses would be acceptable.  How strictly one follows low sodium is a matter of one’s personal needs, and should not be generalized from what another person is doing.

Salt is sodium chloride.  This is the common table salt, which breaks up in solution.  Other salts that do the same exist.  One that is sold replaces the sodium with potassium, so if you have no potassium intake restrictions it can help.  The taste is close to that of real salt.

My wife decided we need to use fresh vegetables and make our own soup.  Soup labels seem to indicate all have high sodium content.  I even checked boxes where you add the water, and the numbers were high.  However, after a little searching my wife found a box of chicken stock with decent numbers, which makes a better tasting soup than just using water.  If these numbers are too high for you either dilute the chicken stock or go to water.

To reduce the work make a large amount and freeze some for later use.

First, the sodium content of bread per slice varies by brand, just as other foods do.  But, even the same brand has variations in sodium.  How is this?  Well, some bread is made with thinner or thicker slices.  We have one popular brand in this area with three thicknesses.  And, the more bread per slice, the more sodium per slice.

This article contains links to affiliate programs from some or all of Amazon, Zazzle, Viglink, and Ebay through Viglink, and Adsense advertising.  These must use cookies to allow for proper crediting.