Reducing your sodium intake: It's all in the details

The New York mayor’s office announcement last week that it’ll try to get restaurants and food manufacturers to reduce salt in packaged and restaurant food by 25 percent over the next five years has sparked a lot of discussion around sodium in the food supply. To me the real news in all of the hoopla was the revelation that food companies like Campbell’s and ConAgra already have been quietly reducing the amount of sodium in canned soups and entrees over the past few years.

It seems that these food companies have been slowly weaning us off sodium without telling us (either in the media or on package labels) because consumer behavior has shown that most people don’t purchase products they know are reduced-sodium.

We’ve been concerned about sodium levels for years because if you want to limit sodium and cook in a hurry, using time-saving ingredients like canned beans and tomatoes presents a challenge. Our best advice is very simple: If you don’t have time to make and freeze homemade tomato sauce and cook dried beans from scratch, buy no-salt-added and reduced-sodium products whenever possible. And make a habit of checking sodium content, printed on the back of each can. When comparing brands and even types of products within the same brand, we’ve found a few surprises:

• “Flavored” tomato products such as chopped tomatoes with seasonings are higher in sodium than plain chopped tomatoes. Flavored tomato paste is has the biggest difference of 210 milligrams (mg) per serving between plain tomato paste and paste with roasted garlic.
• Different brands of the same type of product can vary widely. One store brand of diced tomatoes had 220 mg of sodium per serving versus 380 mg contained in a national brand.
• Stewed tomatoes tend to be higher in sodium than plain tomatoes mainly due to the extra ingredients and salt added during the stewing process. One national brand now offers no-salt-added stewed tomatoes, and we expect others will follow.
• No-salt-added tomato products are indeed becoming more common, and the sodium savings is significant. Choosing the no-salt-added diced tomatoes offered by one national brand saves 200 mg per serving of sodium as compared with the brand’s regular tomatoes. In tomato paste, the savings is 75 mg.
• Canned beans have a wide range of sodium content among different brands as well as among different varieties of beans. We spotted everything from 280 to 410 mg of sodium per serving. However, more and more canned beans are available in “sensibly seasoned” or no-salt-added varieties.
• There is a trick to help. Most nutritionists agree that draining and rinsing canned beans with tap water reduces the sodium – by as much as 40 percent according to some reports.
• Be aware that while no-salt-added products are a healthier alternative to the regular varieties, they are not sodium free or even low sodium (must be equal or less than 140 mg).