Surprising High-Sodium Foods

Your body needs sodium to function. It helps you maintain a balance of fluids, transmit nerve impulses and facilitate the contraction and relaxation of your muscles. Indeed, a recent piece in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition explained how the human body has developed numerous "failsafe mechanisms" to ensure sufficient sodium availability. At the most basic, biological level, our body wants and needs it.

But too much of just about anything isn't good, and the same holds true for salt. An excess of sodium chloride in your body overwhelms the kidneys, which aren't able to excrete it properly causing it to accumulate in your blood. That, in turn, can lead to hypertension or high blood pressure, the potential consequences of which are life-threatening, including heart attack and stroke. The issue is so important that WASH, the World Action on Salt Health, has dubbed March 21 through 27 World Salt Awareness Week. The hope is to spread awareness about the potential dangers of too much salt to help combat cardiovascular disease.

The United States Government recommends that most adults intake less than 2,300 mg of salt per day, though it recently added the caveat that adults over the age of 51, in addition who is African American or has hypertension, diabetes and chronic kidney disease (aka, about half of the American public), should limit their intake to 1,500 mg per day. But the CDC estimates that the average sodium intake per person in the U.S. is more than 3,400 mg per day. And it says that most of that comes from processed and restaurant foods.

"That's the issue," said Dr. David Katz, founding director of Yale's Prevention Research Center and a HuffPo contributor. "It's really, really hard for the consumer to address the issue of sodium intake themselves, because 80 percent of it comes from packaged foods -- not from the salt shaker."

Even trickier?

"A lot of the times," Katz said, "Salt doesn't come from foods you'd expect."

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Breakfast Cereals

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"Pick any commercial brand," Katz said, "And most of them are more concentrated in salt than 50 to 60 percent of the items in the salty snack aisle." Concentration, he added, is one easy marker consumers can use when determining how salty a food is and whether you should steer clear of it. If you figure you have around 2,000 calories allotted to you a day and the U.S. guidelines limit salt intake at just north of 2,000 mg, you want to be looking for foods that have around a 1:1 ratio of sodium to calories per serving. "If you rehab your taste buds and switch to pure, whole grain cereals like I have," he said, "you can really taste the salt. Consequently, I can eat Cheerios, but not for breakfast and definitely not with milk. I snack on them when I'm having a beer."

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"Pick any commercial brand," Katz said, "And most of them are more concentrated in salt than 50 to 60 percent of the items in the salty snack aisle."

Concentration, he added, is one easy marker consumers can use when determining how salty a food is and whether you should steer clear of it. If you figure you have around 2,000 calories allotted to you a day and the U.S. guidelines limit salt intake at just north of 2,000 mg, you want to be looking for foods that have around a 1:1 ratio of sodium to calories per serving.

"If you rehab your taste buds and switch to pure, whole grain cereals like I have," he said, "you can really taste the salt. Consequently, I can eat Cheerios, but not for breakfast and definitely not with milk. I snack on them when I'm having a beer."

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Comments

[LovingFit]

04:57 AM on 04/23/2011

I am not so surprised after all, I have this gift all I have to do is look at a food and I can tell you right away if you should eat it or not, and how healthy if is for you. Probably because I grew up in Russia, my parents taught me about nutrition so well, that it stuck with me forever. When I first moved to US, I recognized right way the problem this country had with nutritional knowledge. I recently started blogging, because I want educate people about the importance of nutrition and exercise in their life. Visit my health and fitness blog at
http://www.lovingfit.com
Tatianna

[LovingFit]

08:10 PM on 04/17/2011

I am not surprised at all. I never eat any of that stuff anyway. I only eat healthy foods and make my own food at home. Follow my health and fitness blog http://www.lovingfit.com

[gm203504]

05:09 PM on 04/07/2011

Heh...I'm reading this as I eat a bowl of ramen (with the seasoning packet), but that's because I'm on a high-sodium diet. Some people can't have too much, and some can't have too little.

[2crudedudes]

10:54 AM on 03/29/2011

Flavored rice and salad dressing are very obvious sources of sodium.

[one1byke]

10:16 AM on 03/27/2011

Sodium - Heart Disease. Sugar - Cancer.
Meat and Greens - you'll die someday, but you'll probably "walk" until then.
Any questions?

[Tom Hendricks]

09:52 PM on 03/26/2011

Why is this only the responsibility of individuals or the government? What about the third rail, - corporate responsibility? Why shouldn't a good company make healthy food? Why doesn't anyone dare whisper the words - corporate responsibility?

[ExcellentObservation]

06:56 PM on 03/26/2011

"Breakfast Pastries"?! aka, dessert. Yeah, because the high sodium is the reason not to eat those things first thing in the morning..... sos.

[ExcellentObservation]

06:54 PM on 03/26/2011

Flavored rice is hardly a surprising venue for lots of sodium.

[yorkie]

01:42 PM on 03/26/2011

What am I to eat? hot water and lemon over hot cocoa ?

[Gary Herbivore]

11:25 AM on 05/04/2011

"what to eat?" - Anything natural (not from a package) ie Since we're primates, you can eat all the fruit you desire and all the veggies you care for. And as long as you don't add salt, all grains and beans are low in sodium.

We're natural fruit eaters. That's why we have no desire to flavor or cook fruit. We're designed for it's taste.

[CardioE2]

12:33 PM on 03/26/2011

Ok, less salt, less stress on the arteries . . .

Excessive sodium impairs endothelial function (the protective lining within the artery) by reducing the production of nitric oxide, diminishing nitric oxide bioavailability and by stimulating nitric oxide synthase inhibitor (asymmetrical dimethylarginine) and enhancing NADPH oxidase: troublesome free radical cell activity.

Excessive dietary salt contributes to vascular stiffness with increasing age, and low sodium diets maintain healthy arterial function.

It is healthful to keep in mind, while excessive sodium is troublesome to the arteries, potassium intake has a beneficial effect on arteries. In addition to providing artery strengthening vitamin C orange juice is also abundant in potassium.


http://www.into-the-heart.com/2010/09/salt-sensitivity-and-blood-pressure.html
. . . stress free cardiovascular disease prevention, with a global footprint.

[Jennifer Hagan]

06:35 PM on 03/28/2011

I guess you're a doctor or have experience in this. I'm now a cardiac patient because I developed Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy during pregnancy. I've been told to watch out for my potassium intake. Potassium is great when you are hypertensive which I am but most people don't know if they have a heart condition or not. They should talk to a doctor before increasing potassium or ask for routine EKGs to make sure that they aren't a good candidate for congestive heart failure. I'm not sure if I'm right on this but this is what i've been told by my cardiologist.

[tomteboda]

10:25 AM on 03/26/2011

Cheerios with milk: 180 calories, 205 mg sodium. Fairly close to the 1:1 ratio.
http://www.cheerios.com/ourcereals/cheerios/cheerios_home.aspx

Milk, chocolate, lowfat: 157 calories, 152 mg sodium. At the 1:1 ratio.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/92/2

Wheat Thins, Hint of Salt; 150 calories, 60 mg sodium. Well below the 1:1 ratio.

Folks have to read the labels. The rest of the items on this list generally are very high-sodium. Most pre-mixed/prepackaged foods have ridiculous amounts of sodium in them (such as flavored rice).

I had to take exception, however, with singling out Cheerios, which are rather well-balanced and made from whole grains to boot.

[SajidHuq]

08:21 AM on 03/26/2011

It is interesting to note how more and more writers on health focus more on nutrition rather than exercise, which is of course, the way to go. The balance between how much to regulate in terms of nutrition and how much to exercise is tricky. I discuss some of this in this article, which I hope is of relevance:
http://www.suite101.com/content/not-another-useless-weightloss-article-a361504

[Nicole Dixson]

02:21 AM on 03/26/2011

I had a bottle of chocolate milk a few weeks ago for the first time in over 10 years. Forgot how tasty it was.

[stape45]

02:05 AM on 03/26/2011

Excessive salt = low-quality, health-threatening cooking.