Chicken and Sodium

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KathryneJY
KathryneJY Posts: 83 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So I was doing some research on chicken. I had noticed that there seemed to be a high sodium count in chicken breasts and I wanted to find out why. I'm quite sensitive to sodium overload and wasn't really noticing anything from eating chicken more regularly.

It turns out that the high sodium count is from injected water and sodium for the purpose of plumping the chicken to make it look more appealing on the grocery store shelf.

I puked a little in my mouth, and thought to myself, is this even legal? Apparently, yes it is.

So after a little more research, I found that the regulations in Canada require chicken that has been treated this way must be called "seasoned" on the package. It turns out I am not eating seasoned chicken and my sodium counts were not that high. I found the right chicken for my journal entry and the difference in the sodium count is about 500mg for 350g of chicken. I don't know what the US requirements are, but some of the "generic" MFP chicken entries are really high in sodium. The same amount of chicken from my dinner last night showed as almost 900mg from the US entry and 150mg for the Canadian brand. I'm sure there are some big differences for chicken in the UK too.

If anyone has any info on the US or UK requirements, I'd love to see them! I'm always interested in what goes into our food.

This thread isn't about sodium is bad vs. sodium is good. I just personally need to restrict my sodium and thought it was interesting.

Replies

  • wolfchild59
    wolfchild59 Posts: 2,608 Member
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    Surely you must have some completely non-injected with anything chicken available in Canada? I buy boneless, skinless, chicken breast from my local shop (I stock up during the $1.99/lb sales) and it has 75mg of sodium per every 4oz. So 350 still seems really high to me.

    I'm not about specific labeling requirements in the US, but I know I've seen packages of chicken that state that a certain amount of their weight may come from injected water (and/or other stuff) so I don't buy those.
  • KathryneJY
    KathryneJY Posts: 83 Member
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    Surely you must have some completely non-injected with anything chicken available in Canada? I buy boneless, skinless, chicken breast from my local shop (I stock up during the $1.99/lb sales) and it has 75mg of sodium per every 4oz. So 350 still seems really high to me.

    I'm not about specific labeling requirements in the US, but I know I've seen packages of chicken that state that a certain amount of their weight may come from injected water (and/or other stuff) so I don't buy those.

    The count for 350g of chicken is about 150mg of sodium. That is about equivalent to about 50mg per 4 oz. the 350 was referring to the chicken weight, not the sodium content. What blew me away was some of the sodium counts on some of the chicken entries on MFP and I only noticed it due to some high sodium numbers. Most chicken in Canada is not injected and if it is, it has to be labeled as "seasoned". I just never knew what that meant before. I was wondering what the US requirements are for labelling.
  • RunFarLiveHappy
    RunFarLiveHappy Posts: 805 Member
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    I buy all natural fresh (not frozen) chicken breasts, no additives or preservatives. Very low sodium. Usually any chicken that is "frozen fresh" will have higher sodium as well. I'm in the US.
  • CLFrancois
    CLFrancois Posts: 472 Member
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    If you butcher your own chicken, you don't need to worry about it. So buy your chicken as close to this process as you can.
    Organic? natural? Someone that has their own chicken pets???

    On a serious note, it is gross. But you can find better chicken than that.
  • mjones6599
    mjones6599 Posts: 129
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    Hi, I recently went off of my blood pressure meds and since I no longer had the benefit of a diuretic, I began retaining water, so I started scrutinizing my sodium intake and found that the Tyson frozen chicken strips that I used regularly for convenience had a whopping 460 mg of sodium per serving. I decided to switch to my local grocer's brand of unseasoned frozen chicken only to find that it wasn't that much better. How could that be? It turns out that I needed to read the fine print. "Frozen chicken tenders with up to 12% solution." What solution? Now I needed to read the ingredient list (who would have thought, it's frozen chicken!) and there it was, my 12% solution was indeed, wait for it, ~ sodium! I had to buy all natural, no preservatives frozen chicken at a cost of nearly triple the Tyson, but it has only 75 mg of sodium per serving, and I don't retain water any longer, so worth every penny.

    According to the FDA, healthy adults can consume up to 2400 mg of sodium a day. This can sometimes be a challenge, when they sneak sodium into just about everything that we consume ~ even our plain ole frozen chicken tenders!
  • KathryneJY
    KathryneJY Posts: 83 Member
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    I don't think I made myself clear. I didn't eat high sodium chicken. I noticed the high sodium counts in my journal and did some research. It ended up the fresh chicken I was eating was not high sodium, which is why I was not having my usual sodium reaction. Then I did some research and found out the labelling requirements for my country. I learned something. I was wondering what the labelling requirements were in other countries. I'm simply interested in nutrition and I thought this was interesting.

    Thanks for your replies, and I'm sorry I wasn't clearer in my OP.

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