{"id":422,"date":"2015-06-29T09:00:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T14:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etbodywork.com\/?p=422"},"modified":"2015-06-15T13:05:58","modified_gmt":"2015-06-15T18:05:58","slug":"tame-salt-intake-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/?p=422","title":{"rendered":"Tame Salt Intake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stick to a Daily Sodium Allowance<\/h2>\n
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The recommended daily intake of sodium for healthy adults is 1500 mg. If you\u2019re African American or older than 51, it\u2019s only 1300 mg. It may sound like a lot but it\u2019s surprising how quickly your meals can add up to your daily allowance. Statistics Canada reports that 85% of Canadian men and 60% of Canadian women aged 19-70 have sodium intakes exceeding the recommended upper limit beyond which health risks increase.\u00a0 \u201cTreat sodium like it\u2019s money and you\u2019re on a budget,\u201d says Marilyn Tanner-Blasiar, R.D., L.D., a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. \u201cLet\u2019s say 2300mg is the equivalent of 23 dollars. If you \u2018spend\u2019 1000 mg, or 10 dollars, on chicken soup at lunch, your budget is over half gone.\u201d Better to divvy it up more sensibly, trying not to exceed 600 mg of sodium per meal and snacks.<\/p>\n

Cut Back on Everyday Culprits<\/h2>\n
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More than 40 percent of our sodium intake comes from food most of us eat every day, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The biggest offenders: bread, lunch meat such as deli ham or turkey, pizza, chicken soup, cheeseburgers and other sandwiches, cheese, pasta dishes, meat dishes such as meat loaf, and snack foods such as potato chips (including canned tomato sauce), pretzels and popcorn. To sidestep these sodium traps, compare nutrition labels on your favorite foods because different brands vary in sodium content. You should also look for no- or low-sodium labels, says Christine Gerbstadt, M.D., R.D., spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Replace pre-packaged canned food wherever you can with lower-sodium alternatives like dried beans and frozen vegetables.<\/p>\n

Learn to Find Hidden Salt Content on Food Labels<\/h2>\n
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While there\u2019s sodium in almost everything, the amount of sodium in things like condiments can be shocking. When you read a food’s ingredients, salt (sodium chloride) isn’t the only thing you should be looking for. There are other sodium-containing compounds such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), sodium nitrate or nitrite and sodium alginate, which will up the total sodium count. One tablespoon of soy sauce has 920 mg of sodium; even labeled \u201clow sodium\u201d has 575 mg of sodium. Other big offenders include teriyaki sauce (690 mg per tablespoon), tomato sauce (640 mg per half cup) and barbecue sauce (420 mg per two tablespoons). \u201cIf you overdo it at one meal, make sure you make low-sodium choices the rest of the day,\u201d says Tanner-Blasiar. Also, low-fat doesn\u2019t mean low-sodium — when food companies take out fat, they often replace it with salt to boost flavor.<\/p>\n

Learn to Love Other Spices<\/h2>\n
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Instead of adding salt, and spices to kick up the flavor in your food, like garlic, basil, cumin, chili peppers, rosemary, ginger or cinnamon. You can also try flavored vinegars, such as fig, pear and cranberry. Because premixed blends of spices often contain salt, come up with your own favorite blends of dried spices and keep them in a shaker instead of putting the salt on the table, says Gerbstadt.<\/p>\n

Know What to Order When Eating Out<\/h2>\n
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Stick to restaurants where your food is cooked to order rather than chain-type eateries where food may be prepackaged (like soup, gravy or even crab cakes). Choose simple items without gravies or sauces and ask for them to be prepared without salt. Order the baked potato instead of the mashed potatoes, but don\u2019t eat the skin, which has likely been oiled and salted before baking. Add a salad to fill up on greens, but keep dressings on the side since they\u2019re often loaded with sodium. Request that grilled entrees, like fish and chicken, be cooked without salt.<\/p>\n

Watch Portion Size<\/h2>\n
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You may think you\u2019re doing fine because you only had a few handfuls of salty snacks, like pretzels or chips. But check out the label for serving size. One ounce of potato chips is 170mg of sodium; but that\u2019s just 15 chips. \u201cIf you are going to indulge, measure out your portion so you don\u2019t overdo it,\u201d says Tanner-Blasiar. \u201cIt\u2019s very easy to eat mindlessly and go overboard on portions.\u201d And you’ll be cutting down on fat and calories, too.<\/p>\n

Give Your Taste Buds Time to Adapt<\/h2>\n
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Your taste for salt is acquired, so it will take some to get used to a lower-sodium diet. \u201cWhen you first cut back, food may taste a little bland,\u201d says Gerbstadt. \u201cIt\u2019s simply that you\u2019ve lost sight of how food naturally tastes.\u201d Decrease your salt intake gradually, and after a few weeks, you probably won\u2019t even miss it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#salt<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stick to a Daily Sodium Allowance The recommended daily intake of sodium for healthy adults is 1500 mg. If you\u2019re African American or older than 51, it\u2019s only 1300 mg. It may sound like a lot but it\u2019s surprising how quickly your meals can add up to your daily allowance. Statistics Canada reports that 85% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-salt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839,"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbodywork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}