High Sodium In Processed Foods

Since we live in a very fast-paced world, many people opt to purchase processed foods because of its convenience and the time saving involve in meal preparation. Processed foods can include those found at fast foods restaurants, frozen foods and pre-packaged foods. All of these types of foods contain too much sodium, in excess of what the daily intake of sodium should be plus many additives with strange names. Even restaurant foods and those healthy choice frozen and processed foods can contain too much salt and sodium. As you probably are aware, sodium in excess of the daily recommended amounts can cause many health problems, particularly heart problems.

To add to this, I also wonder how much sodium the prepared meals from those diet centers contain.

Of course there is a way to avoid all this unnecessary sodium and still eat healthy and delicious meals and it is to prepare your own meals. If you do it wisely, it can be quick and not very time consuming to do. Start by planning your meals for the week when you go shopping. Simply prepared dinners can be just as delicious as fancy ones which take a lot more time. What I like to do with certain foods is to pre-cook for a few days and store it safely in your refrigerator for 2 to 3 days like rice and chicken. So all you have to do when it is time to eat is to reheat when you are ready to eat. Other meats like fish and beef can be cooked quite quickly on the day you want to eat it. Preparing salads also doesn’t take very long. So basically in 30 minutes or less you can have a healthy and hot dinner ready to eat. Also, try to avoid adding salt to your cooking. Substitute salt with spices and herbs. It’s much healthier and tastes great!

Other mealtime tips

For lunch, try opting for tuna and salads instead of deli meats whenever you can. They contain a lot of sodium plus other preservatives.

For breakfast, choose the cereals that contain the lowest amounts of sodium.

In summary, eventually governments will create legislation requiring companies and restaurants to substantially reduce the sodium content in their processed foods to much lower levels. In the meantime, these are just some of the ways to reduce your sodium intake.