Tricks to lower sodium intake?

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toefreckle
toefreckle Posts: 12
in Food and Nutrition
I never add salt to things, and always buy no salt added products when I can. But my sodium is still 2500 over my goal for the day. My father's side of the family is riddled with heart problems and blood pressure problems, so I try to be careful, and I was blown away. Any tips?

Replies

  • girlviernes
    girlviernes Posts: 2,402 Member
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    frankly, it's hard to keep sodium low unless you cut out most packaged foods and don't eat out often. Look at your intake and see what you could replace. I'm high on sodium too, not yet willing to cut down but need to do so.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    Well look at your diary, look at what has a lot of sodium, and find alternatives to those items...
  • ShannonMpls
    ShannonMpls Posts: 1,936 Member
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    Cook your own food, and it will solve 95% of your sodium overages. The only time I go over is when I eat restaurant food or make Asian food at home (like homemade miso ramen, for example).
  • Anxieux
    Anxieux Posts: 275 Member
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    I'm high on sodium every day, yet last time I went to get my blood pressure checked it was 110/65.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
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    Eat whole foods you cook yourself and then salt to taste. Restricting sodium in and of itself is not going to prevent heart disease or hypertension though.
  • DvlDwnInGA
    DvlDwnInGA Posts: 368 Member
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    Well look at your diary, look at what has a lot of sodium, and find alternatives to those items...

    Easiest approach right there. I was really high on sodium as well. I switched up a couple things that were really high and brought mine down to decent levels.

    Cheese, lunch meat, and surprisingly cottage cheese, I found were really the back breakers in my low sodium search and I have tried to find low sodium alternatives to. As others have said as well, cook most of your own food and you can get rid of most of it. Most everything that is easy and prepackaged is loaded with sodium.
  • eurochick64
    eurochick64 Posts: 60 Member
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    I am also trying to keep my sodium level at around 1500 a day.....most days i do

    I make food fresh, processed is just PACKED with salt , eat tons of veggies,steamed no salt added in cooking process, I never put salt on to eat either, if i make something like Chilli, or Taco's i use Ground Turkey, and no sodium added tomato sauce, and Mrs Dash No sodium mix, also organic canned tomato, kidney beans etc are very low sodium too, !
  • tony56pr
    tony56pr Posts: 141 Member
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    Recently found mrs. Dash has season packets for tacos, fajitas, pot roast etc... if you are used to high sodium it will taste off but you will adapt.

    Even if you cook at home, taco seasons, chilli, steak seasonings, etc. Are loaded with sodium, even things like roast can be if you don't pay attention not to mention chicken and that "15% solution" is nothing but salt water...
  • lee134
    lee134 Posts: 280 Member
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    Read food labels and if all possible cut out process foods .
  • Joannah700
    Joannah700 Posts: 2,665 Member
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    Recently found mrs. Dash has season packets for tacos, fajitas, pot roast etc... if you are used to high sodium it will taste off but you will adapt.

    Even if you cook at home, taco seasons, chilli, steak seasonings, etc. Are loaded with sodium, even things like roast can be if you don't pay attention not to mention chicken and that "15% solution" is nothing but salt water...

    You can use these and then play with recipes adding citrus or various vinegars to give you that 'kick'. Use balsamic vinegar and you wont even notice if there was salt or not in your food.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    Cut back on packaged, heavily processed convenience foods. And look at the sodium content for restaurant foods (PANERA).
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,368 Member
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    I have to keep my sodium below 1500 a day (one of the main reasons I joined MFP was to track this) and avoiding premade food is one of the best tricks. Things like soup and broths, pasta sauces, frozen meals, condiment sauces are just loaded with sodium.

    You can often find "low sodium" products but read the label carefully. Sometimes they score low on sodium because they have shrunk the serving size to less than what one would consume at a normal meal.
  • MrsHyland
    MrsHyland Posts: 87 Member
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    My husband has kidney disease and is on dialysis, so he has a very limited sodium allowance. I agree with cooking most of your own food, it really does help a lot. There are some great website for kidney patients that have low salt recipes. Most of them are actually pretty good. Potassium and phosphorus are another restriction, but you could ignore those and add other ingredients to fit your specific diet. It's actually a lot easier than it seems to cut back. You will notice a difference at first, but you get used to it. Try lots of other herbs and spices, and lemon, which works surprisingly well as a salt substitute. A lot of "low sodium" items are actually "lowER sodium", which means they cut it from 1,000mg to 500mg, but it's still to high (I'm lookin' at you chicken broth). You might have to look around a little more, but you'll find most of what you need with less salt. You can rinse beans or canned veggies to get some of the salt off of them as well.

    davita.com is my favorite place to get recipes. I have tried several and they are pretty good.
    http://www.ultracare-dialysis.com/RecipeCenter.aspx have only tried one from here, but loved it. Taco chicken pizza, yummy!
  • ThinkInOregon
    ThinkInOregon Posts: 283
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    Avoid processed foods, including all canned vegetables unless they are of the no-sodium variety.
  • Jennloella
    Jennloella Posts: 2,286 Member
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    yup cook everything yourself from fresh.....I'm under 1500 a day.

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