Heart health month isn’t just about awareness but also about providing some simple solutions. You have probably heard or read the statistics regarding salt intake in our everyday diet before we even pick up a salt shaker and while it may be some time before the “fast food” and “junk food” industries reduce the salt in their products, there are a few simple adjustments you can make to help reduce your daily salt intake.
- Buy low-salt or reduced -salt versions of your favorite foods
- Choose fresh or frozen over canned when possible
- Salad for lunch or dinner? Leave out the croutons or bacon
- Limit your intake of high sodium foods (bacon, tuna, pickles, olives, gravy, etc)
- Take the salt shaker off the dinner table
- Use high-salt condiments, such as ketchup and mustard, sparingly
Reducing salt in the American diet by as little as one-half teaspoon per day could prevent nearly 100,000 heart attacks and 92,000 deaths each year according to a new study done by researchers at Stanford University Medical Center and Columbia University Medical Center. Such benefits are on par with the benefits from reductions in smoking and could save the United States about $24 billion in health care costs, the researchers add. For more information about this study check out this great article in Science Daily (Jan. 21, 2010)
To learn more about what you can do to decrease sodium in your diet check out these great resources: