We have been thinking a lot about sodium lately. Every time we enter a grocery store item on this site, or look to buy prepared items to make things like chili baked potatoes, we find that most things have 30% or more of our recommended daily allowance (RDA) of sodium. We also began to notice (while calculating nutrition for homemade baked goods) that with just a small amount of added salt, each serving was quite high in sodium compared with what we expected. We began to wonder: how much is our RDA of sodium, really? What is sodium good for, and what are the downsides of taking in too much?
We learned that our RDA is just under 1 teaspoon of salt! We’re not sure what we expected, but a teaspoon was definitely less than what we thought. After all, how liberally do some of us salt our food! It isn’t too hard to get a teaspoon of salt in one’s daily diet, and with one trip down the prepared food aisles we quickly see how it is VERY easy to go way over that number. We also learned that in the United Kingdom the RDA for sodium for adults and children is < 1600 (just under 3/4 tsp of table salt). According to the Mayo Clinic, 77% of our sodium intake comes from processed and prepared foods, with only 5% added from cooking.
Why do we need salt?
Salt helps regulate the fluid in our bodies. However, when sodium levels get too high, it can cause a blood pressure increase, which is subsequently linked to greater risk of heart disease and stroke. Most Americans get 3,000 to 4,000 milligrams of sodium every day(!), almost double the RDA and more than twice the recommended value in the UK.
What can you do to lower sodium?
- Become a label reader. For example, when buying prepared soup, look at the different varieties and select the one lowest in sodium.
- Eat a diet rich in fruit and vegetables and lower in processed foods.
- Lower the added salt in baked goods by 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon. While salt adds flavor to baked goods, you can remove this amount from a recipe without noticing an effect.
- Do some rough calculations. If you consume a prepared salad for lunch with 47% RDA of sodium, choose a home-cooked, low-sodium dinner to balance out your lunch.
- Be aware of other sources. For example, 1 teaspoon of baking soda has 1,000 mg of sodium, and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce also contains 1,000 mg. However, we found evidence to suggest that using soy sauce instead of salt could actually lower your sodium intake.
Authored by Amy and Scott Dawson, creators of Lunchtaker.com: One of our core focuses is on nutrition and fitness. Our children both attended a parent cooperative pre-school where the morning snack was as healthy as possible, and our family liked the opportunities for new foods that arose in pre-school. As our children go through grade school, we are focusing on continuing the trend of ensuring we feed ourselves a variety of foods, all good for our bodies... read more...
Posted Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 6:55 pm and filed under Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.