Everyone knows someone that has been affected by high blood pressure,
heart attack, or stroke. There is also a
good chance that those affected had an excess of sodium in their daily diets. This mineral is necessary for certain body
functions, but not in the quantities that many people consume daily.
This week as I looked over food journals from my clients it wasn’t the calories or the fat in their diets that concerned me, it was the sodium. The American Heart Association recommends keeping daily sodium intake to 1,500mg or less. In many of these journals, I would see anywhere from 2,500mg per day to 4,000mg per day. When talking with these clients, their food choices seemed healthy but the sodium amounts were a surprise to them. A couple of the items with larger amounts of sodium were deli meats and pickles. Eating a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with a few dill pickle chips seemed like a good option at the time. However, that one sandwich had approximately their full daily value of sodium. Think about when you have been at a restaurant and your meal was served with a single dill pickle spear. Well, that pickle alone can have approximately 700mg of sodium.
Pay special attention to items
such as deli meats, frozen dinners, pickles, salad dressings, salsas, and
soups. Keep your eyes open for low
sodium versions of those food items.
With low sodium options, monitor other values such as fat and sugar to
make sure that those numbers don’t increase while the sodium decreases. Heart disease is the number one cause of
deaths in the United States, so please monitor your sodium intake.
No comments:
Post a Comment