{"id":18893,"date":"2022-03-07T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=18893"},"modified":"2022-02-22T13:06:22","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T18:06:22","slug":"10-easy-ways-to-reduce-sodium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2022\/03\/07\/10-easy-ways-to-reduce-sodium\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Easy Ways to Reduce Sodium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A friend recently confided that she was trying to reduce her\nsodium intake because her blood pressure is elevated and she\u2019s trying, with her\ndoctor\u2019s approval, to see if she can lower it through diet.  As we talked, I realized, that, despite being\nopen to the idea of reducing sodium, she wasn\u2019t sure what changes to make.  She\u2019s already on the right track \u2013 she\ndoesn\u2019t use many processed foods and she eats a lot of fresh fruits and\nvegetables and she enjoys cooking. Here are some ideas I shared with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Read the Nutrition Facts section of the label. Different\ncompanies have products that vary in sodium content. Even if the label doesn\u2019t\nsay \u201clow sodium,\u201d you may find a product that is lower in sodium than its\ncompetitors. For example, looking at a supermarket shelf of canned beans, I\nfound a range of 90-450 milligrams of sodium per \u00bd cup serving. Choose the\nlowest sodium product and you\u2019ve saved as much as 360 milligrams of sodium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Drain and rinse canned beans.  You may have noticed that many recipes in Vegan Journal<\/em> call for canned beans,\ndrained and rinsed. The reason we suggest this is that up to 40% of the sodium\nin a canned product can be rinsed away. So, if you choose a can of beans with a\nlabel value of 200 milligrams of sodium, you can reduce the sodium by as much\nas 80 milligrams by draining and rinsing the beans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Add no salt added tomato sauce to jarred pasta\nsauce.  Jarred vegan pasta sauce can be a\nconvenience whether you\u2019re using it to top a pizza crust, in vegan lasagna, or\ntossed with pasta.  You can reduce its\nsodium content by mixing it with purchased no salt added tomato sauce in the\nratio of your choice \u2013 1 cup tomato sauce to 1 cup pasta sauce, 2 cups tomato\nsauce to 1 cup pasta sauce, etc. Add a little oregano and basil, if you like. If\nyou decide to use the 1:1 ratio of pasta sauce to tomato sauce, you\u2019ve reduced\nthe sodium in a \u00bd cup serving of pasta sauce from, say, 470 milligrams to 255\nmilligrams.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Mix salty snacks with unsalted snacks.  If you like to snack on salted nuts or salted\npretzels, buy a bag of unsalted nuts or unsalted pretzels and make your own\nreduced sodium mix. You can adjust the ratio of salted product to unsalted\nproduct and as you get used to eating food with less salt, you may find that\nyou\u2019re using much more of the unsalted product and less of the salted one. If\nyou start with a 1:1 ratio, you might save 75 milligrams of sodium in a \u00bc cup\nserving of nuts or as much as 250 milligrams of sodium in a 1 ounce serving of\npretzels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Toss the flavoring packet.  Products like ramen noodles are convenient\nbut they are super salty. Much of their salt comes from the flavoring packet.\nYou can discard it and flavor the noodles with a low sodium spice blend. If\nthat\u2019s not an option, start by using just a small bit of the seasoning packet\nand taste before adding more. If you\u2019re eating a package of ramen noodles, you\ncould reduce their sodium from 730 milligrams to 25 milligrams just by\ndiscarding the unopened flavoring packet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Make your own condiments. Salad dressings, barbecue\nsauce, salsa, even catsup can be sources of lots of sodium. While you may not\nwant to make all of these products, choosing a couple that you use frequently\nand finding recipes for them where you control the added salt (and use reduced\nsodium ingredients where possible) can cut sodium markedly. For instance, a\ncommercial barbecue sauce might have 300-400 milligrams of sodium per 2 Tablespoons.\nMaking your own with tomato paste could give you a product with 20 milligrams\nof sodium per 2 Tablespoons. There are some commercial reduced sodium barbecue sauces,\nbut I could only find one kind in area stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Find or make a low-sodium vegetable broth. Many vegan\nrecipes call for vegetable broth. \nAseptically packaged vegan broths could have 600 milligrams or more of\nsodium per cup.  Vegan broth base or\nbouillon could result in broth with as much as 800 milligrams of sodium per cup\nof broth.  You could make your own broth\nusing fresh vegetables and adding little or no salt, use a commercial low-sodium\nvegan broth, or you could replace the broth called for in a recipe with 1 part\nof regular commercial broth and 1 part of water (or even more water and less\nbroth). If you\u2019re working with a well-seasoned recipe, it\u2019s likely that you\nwon\u2019t even notice that you didn\u2019t use as much broth as was called for.\nReplacing a cup of commercial vegan broth with a cup of low-sodium vegan broth\ncould save as much as 680 milligrams of sodium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Flavor food creatively. Salt is often added to commercial\nproducts as an inexpensive way to flavor food instead of using more expensive\nherbs and spices for flavor. If you do your own cooking, you can change that.\nExperiment with herbs, spices, vinegars, fruit juices, and other ingredients to\nenable you to cut the salt without sacrificing flavor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. When using a recipe, don\u2019t feel bound to use the amount\nof salt called for. I\u2019ve found that in many recipes I can use half or even less\nof the salt in the recipe without noticing it. You can always add salt but it\u2019s\nhard to take it out once it\u2019s been added to a dish. Many of our recipes in Vegan Journal<\/em> call for salt to taste,\nencouraging the person preparing the recipe to use their own judgement rather\nthan relying on someone else\u2019s idea of how salty a dish needs to be. If you\ndon\u2019t add a lot of salt to a recipe, people can add the amount of salt that\nthey like at the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Be aware of salty ingredients like miso, soy sauce,\ntamari, and liquid aminos. If the recipe has these ingredients, it probably\ndoesn\u2019t need additional salt added. And, just as you might do with table salt,\ntaste the dish before adding salty ingredients \u2013 it\u2019s likely that you won\u2019t\nneed as much as the recipe calls for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD A friend recently confided that she was trying to reduce her sodium intake because her blood pressure is elevated and she\u2019s trying, with her doctor\u2019s approval, to see if she can lower it through diet.  As we talked, I realized, that, despite being open to the idea of reducing sodium, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18895,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18893\/revisions\/18895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}