Sodium Intake

It's tough, if not impossible. I have to watch my sodium intake too. I eat relatively few packaged foods (salad dressings and jarred sauces mostly; everything else is cooked from scratch), and I'm having a hard time hitting my sodium target of 1500mg/day. Of course, I'm also low-carbing, which makes it even tougher!

I would say maybe try starting with a modest goal: one meal a day you cook yourself. (I'm assuming you have access to a kitchen and refrig?) You could set aside a free evening and cook up a big pot of soup, then have that for lunch every day. Or pre-cook some chicken breasts and vegetables, and reheat them. Good luck!

I have the opposite problem. My struggle is to actually hit the 500mg minimum you need a day, because all my food is homecooked and I fill up on homemade salads and I don't put salt in those. Aside from the obvious prepacked foods, cheese and bread have a lot of sodium in it. However if you read the labels of various breads, you'll find that they can vary significantly. Here in Australia and the UK the heart foundation puts like a stamp of approval on some meals that have less sodium, but you really need to check. Good luck :-)

Several years ago, I had to drop my sodium intake to 1500 mg/day. At that time, I was cooking for myself for most meals, and I still found it very difficult to hit that target. (Still do.) I try to avoid absolute statements, but I don't think it's possible to hit 1500 mg/day if you eat any commercially-prepared foods.

So, what to do? First, cook for yourself as much as possible. If you must use convenience foods (and, let's face it, even "cooking from scratch" in the USA means you probably use commercially-prepared broth, or canned tomatoes, etc. once in a while), get obsessive about finding low-salt varieties. They exist, but they can be very difficult to find. Read labels, and figure out the "codes". For example, Goya makes a line of low-sodium canned beans—all their labels are light blue.

Some processors do not add salt (or don't add much) in their recipes. These tend to be "healthy" or "natural" and are often European in origin. For example, Pomi tomatoes do not have added salt. Instead of looking in desperation for the one buried can of "no salt added" American brand, I just can grab Pomi. Learn which products you like from which companies.

Second, learn which foods contain a big hit of sodium, or which ones contain hidden sodium. For example: I stopped drinking skim milk because the sodium pushed me over my limit. I switched to other sources of protein and calcium. I cut down on bread, too. (Commercial low-sodium bread tastes weird and is full of junk; making my own salt-free bread was a hilarious round of inedible hockey-pucks.) Celery is naturally high in sodium. Find out what your problems are, and slowly reduce the quantities you eat.

Third, try a hard limit for sodium on convenience foods. For example, if I see a frozen meal and it has 800 mg of sodium per serving, I don't buy it. I can't afford the hit. But I can make 700 mg work. Get good at reading the packages (and sticking to the portion limits!). You can find some unexpected low-sodium hits, too. For example, I like Home Run Inn's Ultra Thin Cheese 6" pizza. Only 560 mg of sodium, 280 calories, and no non-food ingredients. Not as good as my homemade pizza, but sometimes I choose to spend that time doing something other than cooking. But it's not packaged as "low sodium"; I had to read the label to find it.

Fourth, try reducing the amount of salt when you cook. If you like salt, do this slowly. (Me, I didn't really crave salt, and the consequences of eating too much were severe, so it wasn't a problem to cut back drastically.) If you cook for others, warn 'em. I still remind people that my food probably has a lot less salt than they are used to, so feel free to add more. (Surprisingly, they often don't.) You can get away with reducing salt in some baked goods, but not all. You will have some failures, and it's fine to throw out inedible food. You will probably find that you have to increase the amount of spices to reduce the blandness, but that's easy. Salt-free herb blends are awesome (not weird stuff like Mrs Dash). Penzey's makes some great blends.

Fifth, reduce the number of restaurant meals you eat. It is simply impossible to eat a low-sodium diet out there. If you go to chain restaurants, hit their web sites to learn how you might avoid the super-high sodium foods. They're often condiments, and there might be alternatives. Chipotle is a good example of this (or, at least, it was the last time I went, which was over a year ago).

Fifth, take it slow. It is exhausting to always be reading labels, and it is frustrating when you realize how many things you can't eat.

Sixth, learn to cook well. Simple meals are not hard, and you don't need to make anything but simple meals to eat well. I heartily recommend any of the Cook's Illustrated books—the big ones with an article before each recipe. Each article is like a mini-course in home cooking.