Hi! My name is Arielle Rosenberg and I'm a registered dietician
for the Clinical Nutrition Department at Johns Hopkins Bayview,
and I've worked with many cardiac patients throughout my time at Bayview.
I wanted to walk to the grocery store with you and help you look at all the foods
with a keen eye to help you figure out which foods are high in sodium, and which
foods are lower in sodium that will be perfect for your shop cart.
Many people think that they are in the clear if they don't pick up the salt
shaker and use it in their cooking. When, in fact, most of the sodium that
Americans consume daily come from processed foods that they may buy in the
grocery store. Watching your sodium intake is really
important since high amounts of sodium in your diet can lead to hypertension,
increased risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke.
So for Tip Number 1, I would recommend sticking to the outside of your grocery store.
All grocery stores are pretty much set up alike. If you stick to the outside of the
grocery store and stay away from the center aisles, you'll be choosing more low
sodium foods there. A lot of these foods are natural
and they're not processed, so this would be a good place to start.
For Tip Number 2, if you happen to make it into the center aisles of your grocery
store, the most important thing you can do is actually read the food label.
The food label does not lie and I always tell my patients knowledge is power, so if
you know how to read the food label, you can be in the clear, you can make healthy decisions.
So for example, when looking at this packaged rice, one serving is one cup of
cooked rice. So on one cup of cooked rice, you have
666 milligrams of sodium in just that one cup. This is a really high-sodium food.
The American Heart Association recommends that the average American consume 1500
milligrams, or less, of sodium in a day. Anything that is a hundred forty
milligrams or less in sodium per serving is a low-sodium food and anything higher
than 300 milligrams per serving is a high-sodium food.
So this, as you could see, would be a high-sodium food.
For Tip Number 3, I would recommend watching out for those canned goods.
Canned soups and canned vegetables are huge culprits when it comes to consuming
high-sodium foods. So as you can see we're in the Canned
Food Section. For example, if you pick up a canned soup
and it says 25% less sodium, this doesn't necessarily mean that this is a low-sodium food.
It just means that this can of soup had 25% less sodium than the average canned soup.
So as you can see if you turn over the food label, this soup has 650 milligrams
of sodium which is still considered a high-sodium food.
Instead of choosing canned soup, I recommend making homemade soups.
This way you can control how much salt you're adding to your soups.
So another good tip if you make it into the center aisles is to look above
and below eye-level, because a lot of times, at eye-level are the unhealthier
higher-sodium foods. So for example we have over here the nut section.
The unsalted peanuts are down here, or the salted peanuts and almonds are right
at eye-level. For Tip Number 4 I really want you to try
to avoid those TV dinners or microwaveable meals. Those are really high-sodium foods;
those are some of the worst culprits. So for example, this pre-made shrimp
dinner over here, one package is your whole serving size and in this one package
you get 960 milligrams of sodium.
That's more than half the amount of sodium you need in an entire day.
Remember, you wanna stay less than or equal to 1500 milligrams of sodium.
Another great tip is look into the dried herb section of your grocery store.
This is a great way to add some flavor and taste to your food.
One of my personal favorites is Mrs. Dash. Mrs. Dash offers a wide variety of
different spices and they are all salt-free which is excellent.
Another choice is the McCormick. So McCormick offers a couple different
salt-free herb blends as well.
Another thing I would recommend trying to stay away from is your pre-packaged lunch meats.
If you do want lunch meats, I recommend going to your deli counter and asking for
a low-sodium option.
So now that your basket is full of some low-sodium foods, I encourage you to go
home and make some low-sodium meals. It's always healthier to make your meals
at home rather than going out to eat. But if you do decide to venture out,
I encourage you to ask your waiter or waitress for low-sodium options.
My favorite request is "Please hold the salt."