This follows on from a side comment I made in the “What’s for dinner tonight” thread about a certain frozen Asian soup that I found contained a whopping 57% of the maximum daily value (MDV) for sodium consumption, and then found that other varieties, while containing less, were still around 47%. But that’s not the point. The point is how prevalent very high sodium levels are in so many prepared foods. This needs to be considered in the context that the labels are required to state, for comparative purposes, that “5% or less is ‘a little’, 15% or more is ‘a lot’”.
Some other examples:
frozen country style chicken with mashed potatoes - 58%
a can of ravioli in tomato sauce - 60%
a can of beans states “24% per 125 ml”. This is clever deception. 125 ml is a pitifully tiny amount. The can contains 398 ml so it’s 76.4% per can, and about half that, or 38%, for a reasonable serving. But since I add barbecue sauce to it that I’m sure is loaded with sodium, it’s probably at least 45% per serving.
The sleazy trick with the beans is also used in labeling prepared soups, a thing one might normally consider healthy. The sodium percentage is usually a nominal amount, until one realizes that the amount they’re referring to is something like a thimble-full.
A single-serving can of clamato juice that I use for making Caesars actually bears a warning label about high sodium content, even though it just contains 22% MDV. But I also add Caesar spice to it, which contains 12% in just a quarter teaspoon, and I probably put in more than that. So there’s over 34% in a drink that I would not have imagined contained any sodium at all! This is how it all adds up!
I can only imagine how much sodium (and fat) is in typical fast foods!
This is terrible for anyone but I’m supposed to be on a sodium-restricted diet so it’s even worse for me. Yet I thrive on convenience foods. This is proof that there is no God.
One of my professors in college had one shelf with no books on it – just a line of used containers of Lipton’s Chicken Noodle Cup-a-Soup. It ran for quite a time and then abruptly stopped, not symmetrically filling out the space on the shelf.
I asked him why that was, and he answered “Oh, that’s when I found out how much salt there was in it.”
Yes, my main point in this thread is to suggest that if people actually looked up the sodium content of prepared foods (and in many cases things like saturated fat and trans fat content) they might be shocked!
I just looked at the label of Rao’s pasta sauce. Although it’s high in sodium, for a change it’s not too outrageous. 16% per 125 ml, so 84.5% per jar. A 660 ml jar generally makes four servings, so about 21% per serving – but that’s just for the sauce alone, and it still exceeds what is considered a high level of sodium. There’s definitely additional sodium in the salted water the pasta was boiled in and absorbed, and in the Parmesan cheese added afterwards, even if there’s nothing else. It all adds up!
Part of the issue is that the RDA for sodium (2300 mg) is laughably low by any non-medical standard. That’s a hair less than one teaspoon of salt for all the foods over the entire day.
I don’t know that most home cooks who watch salt closely manage to keep their daily sodium intake under one teaspoon per person.
That said, prepared foods are absolutely loaded with salt and stuff like MSG (also a source of sodium). That, and their fat/sugar content will stun you if you read the labels on many things.
When I did cardio rehab after my triple bypass, they advised me to limit foods to about 500 mg of sodium or less. That, I soon found out, was almost impossible to do while eating packaged food or going to restaurants.
I worked with my wife to develop lower-sodium home-cooked meals. They were tasteless after a lifetime of salt, so we started jacking up the spice content - not hot spices, but a variety of stuff off the spice rack. Another trick was simply to eat smaller amounts. I’ve maintained my weight since I got out of rehab three years ago, a surprising outcome since I’m limited in how much I can physically do for a long list of reasons.
People talk a lot about processed food makers using fat and sugar to addict customers; salt is the third of that unholy trinity and kept too quiet.
You and I share a common history here, @Exapno_Mapcase, except that I pushed back on bypass surgery so vehemently that the doctors eventually agreed to a stenting (PCI) procedure instead. But high blood pressure and the consequent risk of a stroke or heart attack is an ever-present concern, so the sodium issue is not just academic. It should also be a concern for everyone.
We just got back from a trip to Costa Rica. The foods there, fresh and packaged, seem to contain far less salt and sugar than we are accustomed to. We noticed how much flavor everything had with less “accenting” from salt and sugar. We never touched a salt shaker there - I suspect our palates are conditioned for more salt and sugar in everything.
Agree with this. My wife started making home-made tomato sauce a few years ago - Holy Hell it’s so much more flavorful than the jarred stuff we used to use (even the low-sugar variety) for pasta and pizza. If at all possible, we try to make stuff at home where you can WAY reduce the amount of sugar and salt being added - it really allows natural flavors to come thru.
The reason I said it was laughably low is because it’s absurdly easy to blow right past it, even if you’re not going crazy with prepared foods, etc…
It’s another of those medical guidelines that are eminently reasonable in a vacuum, but when combined with other stuff are absurdly difficult to actually do. We’re supposed to exercise for a minimum of 30 minutes a day, eat a Mediterranean diet of low-sodium, low-fat foods that we make ourselves from fresh ingredients after being at work for at least nine hours a day, and get eight hours of sleep a night, as well as do what our kids need, and basic home tasks like laundry, dishes, etc… That doesn’t leave much time for anything else, honestly. So people just ignore them, because they’re unrealistic in the aggregate.
I’ve grown a lot less salt tolerant with age. There are a lot of things I used to love, that I just can’t eat any more (at least, not without unpleasant consequences).
The part that I don’t understand is why. My grandmother has an excellent recipe for tomato soup, for instance, that cans very well, and has a load of flavor. But if you look at canned tomato soup in the store, the regular stuff has less flavor than Gramma’s, and the low-sodium has no flavor whatsoever… while still having more sodium than hers.
As I mentioned, Gramma’s soup cans well. Why can’t some big company just use a recipe like hers, with low salt and loads of flavor?
I only “agreed” to the bypass after my surgeon failed while trying to push a stent through a artery that proved to be 90% blocked. I knew things were bad because I “flunked” a stress test so badly that they sent me straight to the surgeon to set up a stenting. But I didn’t expect a bypass to be the answer.
Spices. Americans are brought up with salt instead of spices. Other cultures aren’t.
I used to eat some crackers that were loaded with salt and now eat a brand that tastes like drywall. Your entries about making recipes with more variety of spices and less salt is inspirational and definitely better than drywall.
I looked at more recent articles and Jamaica seems to be rising in the sodium ranks. Maybe processed foods have gotten them too.
Vinegar-based hot sauces can be a good choice. A hot sauce typically needs either acid or salt for preservation. If salt is out, that means more vinegar. Tabasco for instance has low sodium per serving. No calories, either.