Sodium, salmon, restaurants

davidnraines

Hey -

Sorry if this is an old question.

I have moderately high blood pressure, and wanted to clean up my diet for a month before going to a doctor to get medication.
I'm trying to understand to what extent I can still eat out if I'm on a low sodium diet.

Is there any way to know how much sodium there might be in a fillet of salmon from a resturant (with no sauce)? Salmon itself has almost no sodium, but who knows what the a resturant or food distributor may do. Any advice? Thanks.

eblakes93

Is it a chain restaurant? Many chains have nutrition with sodium levels on their websites. Just know that levels of standardization vary from restaurant to restaurant.

I personally find restaurant food to be too salty for my taste.

davidnraines

I'm going to answer my own question, in case anyone else searches for it.

Numbers are a little hard to come by on this. Chain restaurants publish their sodium levels, and salmon is usually better than other meats.

What I've started doing when I'm at a non-chain restaurant is asking for a salmon fillet plain - no salt, no sauces. Just a lemon on the side. And it usually comes out *tasting* very low sodium. I still log it in MyFitnessPal as if it had the full 700mg or whatever that a chain would have, but I think I'm tasting something that's sodium free, or almost sodium free. Salmon that comes pre-processed (smoked salmon, for instance), also comes salted, so this only applies at restaurants that are getting their fish fresh or frozen.

Good luck everybody!

davidnraines

Hey - you answered a while ago, and I forgot to thank you.

Yep, restaurants post the sodium levels of their fish, and salmon is usually one of the lower sodium options. So if I get roped into eating out, a salmon fillet will only have about 1/2 my days allowance of salt (which I can budget for), rather than a burger or a pizza (which has like 2x my days allowed sodium).

I've also started specifically asking for a no sauce, no salt, no sodium preparation (with a lemon on the side), and most restaurants are happy to oblige. I still *record* it in MyFitnessPal as if it were full sodium (because I don't know how much sodium there is in it), but it definitely tastes less salty than otherwise.