Processed foods, such as lunch meats, cheeses, canned goods, frozen dinners and condiments contain hundreds of milligrams in sodium.
Here are three examples. Amount of sodium for a half cup cooked/ 120g/ml per serving:
- Canned – Bush’s best dark red kidney beans: 260mg
- Canned – College Inn Beef broth: 450mg
- Canned – Campbell’s Select Harvest Italian Style Wedding Soup: 205mg
- Frozen – Green Giant Baby Brussels Sprouts: 320mg
How much salt? Read labels…
- 2 Pancakes, 1/2 Tbsp Syrup: 1,104mg
- 1 Cup Low Fat Cottage Cheese: 918mg
- 1 serving Rice Pilaf (packaged): 890 mg
- 1 Cup Tuna Salad: 824 mg
- 3 oz Canned Salmon: 471 mg
- 8 Graham Crackers: 190 mg
- 1 Can Diet Soda: 40 – 70 mg
Note: 1 Tbsp. of table salt has 2, 325 milligrams of sodium
To lower your sodium/ salt intake and add flavor to your cooking replace the table salt with fresh or dried herbs and spices, lemon juice or lemon zest for flavor. Try the following:
- Ginger is a great flavor enhancer and is excellent with pork, fruit, cookies and vegetables.
- For a vegetable stir fry, try combining small amounts of cinnamon, garlic, pepper, ginger and anise.
- A simple salad dressing can be made with vinegar and oil, but there are various other salt free options you can use to add flavoring as well. Dill, garlic, oregano, lemon or basil make palatable alternatives.
- A simple Italian dressing is made by combining ½ teaspoon each of oregano, garlic powder, white pepper, parsley flakes, sugar, mustard and minced onion flakes with ½ cup vinegar and 1 cup vegetable oil (preferably olive).
| French Fries | olive oil, rosemary, and garlic |
| Meat: | onion powder, chili, cumin, chili, curry, coriander, celery seed, basil and oregano. |
| Fish: | lemon, pepper |
More to read: How good are labels when you’re counting calories?
Technorati Tags: canned goods, herbs and spices, flavor enhancer
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve found that cooking with ginger is easier than one would think. I use it in salad dressings, stir fry, and a number of other things because I love the taste for one thing and the health benefits are awesome. Thanks for the great article. I’m always worried about sodium content because I swell so badly in my feet and legs.
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my wife has a kidney problem, and lowering her sodium intake is a very important thing for us. thanks for this post
btw, how do i forward this ?
Noel´s last blog ..Where Is My Money? Part 3 – The Beginnings of a Budget
Hi, thanks a lot for that interesting post.
I season my meal with a lot of salt very often, I love it, even I know, that it´s not the best way.
I´ll try to follow your advice.
Nena Gutscheinbuch´s last blog ..Restaurants Essen
Great content on low sodium cooking. I’ve found that cooking with less salt is really advantageous to one’s health. I recommend sea salt as well. Sea salt, unlike iodized salt, is better for the human body as it still has all of its natural minerals intact. Thanks for sharing.
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nice article..i showing my wife about this article, she had trouble with higher sodium..really thanks
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Thank you for sharing this
I´ve heard about it before and I saw a documentary about how much sodium we eat. They made a comparison and showed me that I have to stop add salt on every dish that I cook or eat. It is really bad for you health (blood, heart etc)