Lowering your salt intake could lower your blood pressure, and maintaining a healthy blood pressure is an important defense against heart disease and stroke. Since salt is a popular additive, you should carefully monitor the amount of sodium you are eating to avoid overdoing it.
Here are some tips to help eliminate excess salt from your diet:
- Use reduced sodium or no-salt-added products. For example, choose low- or reduced-sodium, or no-salt-added versions of foods and condiments when available.
- Buy fresh, plain frozen, or canned with "no-salt-added" vegetables.
- Use fresh poultry, fish, and lean meat, rather than canned, smoked, or processed types.
- Choose ready-to-eat breakfast cereals that are lower in sodium.
- Limit cured foods (such as bacon and ham), foods packed in brine (such as pickles, pickled vegetables, olives, and sauerkraut), and condiments (such as MSG, mustard, horseradish, ketchup, and barbecue sauce). Limit even lower sodium versions of soy sauce and teriyaki sauce — treat these condiments as you do table salt. Remove the salt shaker from the dining table!
- Use spices instead of salt. In cooking and at the table, flavor foods with herbs, spices, lemon, lime, vinegar, or salt-free seasoning blends. Start by cutting salt in half.
- Cook rice, pasta, and hot cereals without salt. Cut back on instant or flavored rice, pasta, and cereal mixes, which usually have added salt.
- Choose "convenience" foods that are lower in sodium. Cut back on frozen dinners, mixed dishes such as pizza, packaged mixes, canned soups or broths, and salad dressings — these often have a lot of sodium.
- Rinse canned foods, such as tuna, green beans, corn, etc. to remove some sodium.
Get Fit For Life!
www.reboundtohealth.com
