inexpensive eating -- how to keep sodium levels down?

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  • Calliope610
    Calliope610 Posts: 3,775 Member
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    Sodium is never a problem for me, mainly because I cook my own food. Chicken breast takes less than 10 minutes to cook. Why buy it boxed and frozen? By a package of fresh raw chicken meat and cook it. You will only get naturally occurring sodium unless you add salt yourself. I don't generally eat canned tuna but the canned salmon I eat it is just salmon and water...any sodium again is naturally occurring.

    Stay away from foods with ingredient lists that contain unidentifiable ingredients and your sodium intake will be minimal.
    Because fresh chicken breast is expensive as f***. I buy it raw and frozen.



    Where do you live? I can buy chicken breasts for $1.00/lb on sale. Boneless, skinless breasts for $1.99/lb.

    Never mind. I see now that you are in Canada.
  • Sjenny5891
    Sjenny5891 Posts: 717 Member
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    Hit a local farmers market and freeze the meat yourself. We use our tax refund to split a cow and pig with our sibblings.
  • Lisafrazier71
    Lisafrazier71 Posts: 59 Member
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    I noticed this too!!!! Just yesterday actually. We bought a bag of Tyson frozen boneless breasts for like $7, there were 8 of them. At first I thought we got a great deal, but then read the label, and then COOKED them... holy crap do they ever shrink up when you cook them! I think if you just wait until the fresh chicken breasts go on sale and buy the really big packages of them, then split them up and freeze them, it ends up being cheaper and healthier than the bagged frozen sodium-y ones. Idk what grocery stores you have where you live but maybe watch the sale flyers. Same thing happened with the steaks we bought from the door-to-door steak guy. FULL of preservatives. And those things taste AWESOME but I won't be buying them again.
  • shining_light
    shining_light Posts: 384 Member
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    Hit a local farmers market and freeze the meat yourself. We use our tax refund to split a cow and pig with our sibblings.

    That's a great idea! :) I'll look into that!

    Also, I realized after doing the math that if I work out the price of the chicken breast in terms of protein by weight(this is how my boyfriend and I average prices a lot of the time when we're lifting...), the one that's not inflated with saline is -- surprise surprise -- cheaper. Ha. Sweet.
  • BrendaLee
    BrendaLee Posts: 4,463 Member
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    The new recommended upper limit for sodium is 2300 mg, I believe, with 1500 mg being the goal. I'm on a very tight budget, and I manage to stay under the upper limit most days with some effort. Chicken is crazy expensive here, too. Four boneless, skinless breasts is going to cost about $15. It's the only chicken I like, though, so I splurge on it and try to spread it out by using half a breast whenever I can. I think Canadian chicken is more expensive because it's better quality, honestly. At least that's what I tell myself to justify the high cost. No offense to any American chickens who may be reading this.

    One way to keep your sodium under control is to enter your day's food in advance and tweak the amounts. If you see your sodium levels are getting up there, use less mustard on your sandwich, or have one less piece of turkey bacon or half a serving of a salty snack. If one meal has a lot of sodium, try to keep it down in your other meals. Buy lower-sodium canned goods when you see them on sale. Superstore often has good deals on their Blue Menu stuff. The canned tomatoes are awesome and have no added sodium. You can feed two people twice with those on top of pasta.

    Feel free to add me and creep my diary. It's not super exciting most of the time, but I'm doing okay with sodium.

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