Too much sodium... how to reduce it?

snowflakelaia
snowflakelaia Posts: 214
edited September 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi

I'm trying to reduce the sodium intake a bit, I'm at 724 (mg) of sodium today, and it's very hard to lower it... it seems that whatever I eat has some...
The same with sugar! but if I eat fruit, or drink some almond milk, I already reach the amount of sugar very quickly...

any suggestions?

Replies

  • izzys1mom
    izzys1mom Posts: 51
    The best advise I can give is staying away from processed foods. I used to eat the Lean Cusines etc. and pre-packaged foods until I started reading the sodium amounts. I also stopped the diet soda, made a huge difference. Hope this helps.
  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
    Wait, are you saying you're shooting for 724mg per day or that's what you've already consumed today? Just want to make sure you're getting at least the minimum - 2300mg per day, especially if you're working out.

    If I'm completely misunderstood your post and you're just trying to reduce your daily intake to stay within the norm, I'd suggest what's already been posted - cut out processed and pre-prepared foods as much as possible. When you read your labels for calories, fat, etc, check the sodium as well.
  • esorcel
    esorcel Posts: 459 Member
    cook your own food

    avoid adding salt and salty seasonings such as maggi (tiny cube and 1/2 is 1200 mg of sodium)

    avoid regular breads and try no salt added whole wheat bread (usually Stop and Shop brand). Regular breads are usually your biggest culprit in a high sodium diet

    UTZ unsalted potato chips instead of regular chips

    Salt in cookies when you are baking them? Are they kidding?

    Also try:
    roasted peppers
    roasted tomatos
    roasted garlic
    lemon juice
    no salted added canned tomato products
    fresh and dried herbs

    If you must add salt, use a small amount of condiments, such as ketchup and barbecue sauce. They have less sodium than one serving of table salt.

    Good luck!
  • diaryoffatdad
    diaryoffatdad Posts: 175 Member
    the new research out there says no more than 1500mg a day for sodium,

    we get way way more than that in our everyday lives (most people 2,3 even 4 times)

    best way to reduce sodium is to eat whole foods, anything processed has lots of sodium in it, it takes a gread deal of dedication and some creativity, but if you buy it in the store, there is a healthier way to make it at home for the most part.

    buy low sodium bread, or better yet make your own,
    eat lots of fruits and veggies,
    anything you can make yourself allows you to control the sodium (and other things)
    so make your own dips, hummus, trail mix, etc.
  • snowflakelaia
    snowflakelaia Posts: 214
    Today I've had about 1000mg.

    I do not want to surpass that amount. I feel bloated, and that my body retains more water if I take more than that. I know that 1000 mg is not much, but it is still quite a bit for me...

    I hardly eat any processed foods, I've had 4 keebler's crackers, and one jalapeño chip (not a bag). This is food lying on the table of the teachers' room ALL DAY. I do not go in there often but when I do, it's hard to stay away. I drink lots of tea, and I have my own snacks in my classroom, but my, it's hard when people bring these foods and leave them out there.
  • ladybug1620
    ladybug1620 Posts: 1,136 Member
    the new research out there says no more than 1500mg a day for sodium,

    .
    Wrong. The new research says that at risk groups should have no more than 1500mg a day. If you are African American, have high blood pressure or other noted conditions, or are over 51 years old, then this is for you. Otherwise they have not changed the sodium limits.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41318009/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/
  • diaryoffatdad
    diaryoffatdad Posts: 175 Member
    the new research out there says no more than 1500mg a day for sodium,

    .
    Wrong. The new research says that at risk groups should have no more than 1500mg a day. If you are African American, have high blood pressure or other noted conditions, or are over 51 years old, then this is for you. Otherwise they have not changed the sodium limits.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41318009/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

    http://cspinet.org/canada/pdf/cspi.comment.sodiumworkinggroup.pdf

    among many others, dietitians, heart and stroke scientists, virtually everyone properly informed would say the recomendations need to be no more than 1500mg,
    sodium limits you talk about are influenced by the "big food" corporations who would have to spend billions of dollars reformating their recipies to reduce sodium.......
  • ladybug1620
    ladybug1620 Posts: 1,136 Member
    the new research out there says no more than 1500mg a day for sodium,

    .
    Wrong. The new research says that at risk groups should have no more than 1500mg a day. If you are African American, have high blood pressure or other noted conditions, or are over 51 years old, then this is for you. Otherwise they have not changed the sodium limits.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41318009/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

    http://cspinet.org/canada/pdf/cspi.comment.sodiumworkinggroup.pdf

    among many others, dietitians, heart and stroke scientists, virtually everyone properly informed would say the recomendations need to be no more than 1500mg,
    sodium limits you talk about are influenced by the "big food" corporations who would have to spend billions of dollars reformating their recipies to reduce sodium.......
    Interesting! I wonder why they aren't advertising this as part of the USDA's recommendations though? Maybe a regional thing?
  • diaryoffatdad
    diaryoffatdad Posts: 175 Member
    Its not part of the recomendations yet because there are big food corporations who have influence on what gets passed as a recomendation.

    the reduction in sodium would mean that all these companies would have to change their product which is expensive.

    because many of these companies (coke, macdonalds, kraft, ......all the big names) fund research and give a lot of money to the government, they have a say in what happens, they buy their way onto the negotiating table for these decisions.

    its silly though, why on earth should a representive from mcdonalds be allowed to have any say in what the recomended sodium intake should be, but it happens because they have the money to throw around.

    there is a lot of money made by companies from products that they claim to be healthy (low fat, low sugar etc....but sodium is rarely taken into account) so if the sodium recomendations were reduced, many of these foods would no longer be able to be deemd or marketed as healthy because of the outrageous sodium levels. They are delaying these recomendations as long as they can to save money.
  • esorcel
    esorcel Posts: 459 Member
    2500 is way to high for many. 1500 seems to make sense. A lot of people, regardless of their race, have sodium sensitivity in which too high sodium levels within their bodies causes them to become bloated, have headaches, and get blurred vision. Eventually, high levels of sodium not only leads to hypertension, but it causes kidney failure. Keeping our eyes open to consuming lower amount of sodium shouldn't be for certain people, or for those who have been medically affected by it, but young people as well, because these medical conditions slowly progress long before you realize they were taking place within your body.
  • girlinahat
    girlinahat Posts: 2,956 Member
    of course we also NEED sodium in our diet.......

    As a child i used to often get cramp in my legs and the response from my mum was to give me a packet of crisps (odd that I never used this as an excuse seeing as crisps were VERY rare) to raise my salt levels.

    I rarely get above 1000mg of sodium (according to my food diary on MFP) unless I add it to stuff. I eat non-processed foods and rarely use salt in cooking because I forget. I can't even eat tinned soups because they taste too salty.

    If you want to reduce salt levels, then stay away from anything that is a foodstuff created in a packet. That includes all products with health claims, breakfast cereals etc. it's difficult for many people, because they have grown up with the taste of salt overpowering everything and are unused to the flavours when things are less salt, but it can be done.
  • Mairgheal
    Mairgheal Posts: 385 Member
    I'm probably a bit thick, but I always get confused between salt and sodium and then there's the difference between grammes and miligrammes. I suspect that a lot of food products on MFP are incorrectly logged. In Ireland (where I am), there's always a salt content in grammes on the packaging, rather than sodium, so I need to recalculate to sodium and to miligrammes.

    Just found online: 1g of salt contains 0.4g sodium. To convert sodium content to salt content, multiply the sodium by 2.5. On labels, more than 0.5g of sodium (1.25g salt) per 100g is high, less than 0.2g sodium (0.5g salt) is low.

    Confused? Yeah, so am I!

    Found this as well:

    Salt facts

    More than 90 per cent of sodium occurs as salt.

    More than three quarters of salt intake is derived from processed foods, just under 15 per cent from natural sources, about 10 per cent is added during cooking or when eating, and 1 per cent comes from tap water.

    Cereal products including breakfast cereals, bread, cakes and biscuits provide about a third of the salt in our diet.

    Meat and meat products (such as ham) provide just over a quarter of the salt in our diet.

    In addition to sodium chloride, there is a wide variety of other forms of sodium in our diet, many of which are used as additives in food processing, usually to add flavour, texture or as a preservative. For example, monosodium glutamate is commonly used as a flavour enhancer.
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