Salt Slashing Tips and Products

Because reducing sodium intake is important to both maintaining healthy blood pressure and preventing bloating, here are some tips from the Hungry Girl Newsletter for lowering salt intake.

Salt-Slashing Tip! Rinse and drain canned foods, like beans, veggies... even tuna and chicken! You'll send tons of sodium down the drain.

Low-Sodium Lines to Love Some of our favorite brands offer entire line-ups of less salt options... * Progresso Reduced Sodium and 50% Less Sodium (soups) * Organic Bistro (frozen meals) * Amy's Light in Sodium (frozen meals, soups, and more) * Boar's Head Lower Sodium and No Salt Added (deli meats and cheeses) * Campbell's Low Sodium, Healthy Request, and 25% Less Sodium (soups) * McCormick 25% and 30% Less Sodium (seasoning mixes and seasoning blends ) * Health Valley 40% Less Sodium and No Salt Added (soups, chili, and broths) * Del Monte No Salt Added and 50% Less Salt (canned veggies) * Green Giant No Salt Added and 50% Less Sodium (canned veggies) * S&W 50% Less Sodium and No Salt Added (canned beans and tomatoes) * Mrs. Dash (salt-free seasoning blends and marinades) * Tabatchnick Low Sodium (frozen soups) * Hunt's No Salt Added (canned tomato products) * Butterball Lower Sodium and Reduced Sodium (turkey and turkey bacon) * Sara Lee Lower Sodium (deli meats)

Salt-Slashing Tip! When dining out, avoid anything blackened or seasoned -- go for broiled or baked instead. Also avoid soy sauce and most salad dressings -- instead, request a few lemon wedges, and then use the juice to bring out flavor in your food.

Salt-Saving Recipe Swaps! When it comes to HG recipes, our goal is to make them delicious, low in fat and calories, and (when possible) high in fiber. We provide nutritional info for sodium, carbs, etc., so you can look at a recipe and decide if it works for you. That being said, here are some super-easy ways to save hundreds of milligrams of sodium when whipping up recipes... Broth - Go for no-salt-added broth instead of regular, and you'll save at least 400mg sodium for every cup used. Canned Tomato Sauce - Instead of standard sauce, use no-salt-added. For every cup of sauce in the recipe, you'll knock off about 1,000mg! Salsa - Trade salsa for fresh diced tomatoes, onions, and herbs. You can save 700mg for each half-cup that's called for! Deli Meats - Instead of using prepackaged slices of meat (like turkey, ham, and chicken), bake the stuff yourself and thinly slice it. Save as much as 250mg for each ounce of meat in the recipe. Canned or Pouched Tuna - Using low-sodium tuna in place of regular will save you 300mg for every half-cup of tuna in the recipe. Low-Fat Turkey or Veggie Chili - Regular kinds have an average of about 750mg sodium per cup. Switching to reduced-sodium types (like the ones by Amy's ) will cut around 400mg for each cup used. And if you use no-salt-added (like Health Valley's ), you can save 675mg per cup! Sodium savings are for the entire recipe and are based on averages. To determine approximately how much sodium you'll save per serving, divide the total sodium savings by the number of servings .