Keeping Sodium Down
Lately I’ve really been trying to watch my sodium intake. When I first started tracking my food it was always the sodium that would turn red first telling me I had exceeded my daily limit. I wouldn’t just go over it by a little bit.. I would sometimes double, even triple, that amount! It got a little out of hand, but I am learning to make substitutions and give up the convenience of canned and processed foods in order to get that number down.
Here are just a few things you can do to help keep sodium in check.
1. Start buying dried beans.
A can of chickpeas I had hanging out in my pantry had 470mg of sodium in a one cup serving. How crazy is that?! There’s only 10mg in 1/4 cup dry chickpeas. Dried beans are very cheap and you can even buy them in bulk bins at your local co-op or health food store. You need to plan ahead with them since they aren’t quite as easy as canned. I usually boil a large pot of them at the beginning of the week and store them in the fridge so I always have some on hand.
2. Make your own salad dressings.
I am a sauce and dressing junkie. When it comes to salads, I used to only be interested in the dressing I was going to use and make a salad to go along with the gallon of dressing I was craving at the moment. Not only do they have a ton of calories, but are usually high in sodium as well. You can see the difference up there between a bottle of store bought dressing (2 tablespoons = 310mg) and the plain balsamic vinegar (1 tablespoon = 0mg).
I just mix a little of the balsamic vinegar with olive oil and I don’t miss regular dressing at all. It’s hard to get used to at first, but it’s much healthier and cheaper to make your own! There are tons of recipes out there to make you own dressings. VegWeb’s dressing recipes are really good and there’s a ton of them to choose from.
3. Create you own frozen meals.
It’s so easy to just grab a frozen lunch to take to work with you but most of these meals have tons of sodium. Whenever I’m making dinner I will double the recipe and put half in freezer safe bags or tupperware and stick them in the freezer. That way I can grab one, take it to work with me and microwave it for a cheap, healthy and low sodium lunch.
These are just a few things I do that have really helped me. Do you have any tips on reducing your sodium?
All 3 of those things you listed are things that I’d love to incorporate into the changes I’m making. I haven’t found a good dressing recipe (i dont like the balsamic & olive oil), never think to make extra to freeze, and have been lazy with meal planning but I bet if I set aside 1 day on the weekend to prep/cook for the week it would make things a lot easier.
I really like dressings that incorporate tahini.. maybe try one of those?
Sundays are really good for making extra meals to freeze and preparing for the week. Sometimes it’s hard to make time to prepare, but it really helps during the week.
Great tips! I think that just avoiding packaged foods in general, and making your own meals whenever possible, is the key to keeping sodium down. One of my favorite tricks is to add a lot of herbs and spices when I’m cooking; that way, I get a lot of flavor without the addition of unnecessary salt
I never realized how much sodium was in packaged foods until I started really reading labels. I used to just focus on calories/fat and now that I look more at sugar/sodium I am so surprised!
That’s a great tip! I need to be better about incorporating different herbs & spices into my meals.
Great tips. When I was new in the US, I always soaked beans and never used the canned kind. But now the bad habit has just caught me and I rarely soak beans. Thanks for giving a reminder to go back to some good habits
I bought canned all the time because I never considered them “packaged food”. I know that sounds silly, but I always thought frozen meals and pop-tarts.. those were packaged foods. I just always assumed it was beans in there and never looked at the label.
Get to soakin’ some beans, girl :]
Great tips! I had never thought of the dried beans one!
Me either. I never considered them packaged food for some reason! I always assumed it was just beans in there! haha.
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