HEALTH TIP #16:

Nutrition food label - Sodium

Why is reducing our sodium intake important? Too much sodium in your diet increases your risk of developing hypertension (high blood pressure). Blood pressure is a measure of the force of blood against the walls of your blood vessels also known as arteries. A normal blood pressure should be below 140/90. The top number represents the pressure when your heart contracts and pushes blood out and the bottom number is the lowest pressure when the heart relaxes between beats. High blood pressure places you at increased risk for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.

When consuming too much sodium, this increases the pressure which in return makes your heart work much harder to push the blood throughout your body.

In general, Canadians eat more than twice the recommended intake of 1500 mg of sodium per day. More than 75% of this sodium intake comes from processed foods and restaurants or take-out meals. The best way to reduce your sodium intake is to cook as much as possible with fresh ingredients and stay away from pre-packaged or processed foods. When grocery shopping, choose unsalted or lower in sodium foods more often and look for words such as “no added salt”, “low sodium”, “sodium-free” and “reduced sodium”. Also when cooking, flavor your food with herbs and spices instead of salt, sea salt or sodium containing sauces.

As a rule of thumb, when looking at the nutrition fact table, choose foods with less than 200 mg of sodium per serving or less than 5% of Daily Value:

Based on the sodium 101 website, here is something you should remember:

GO AHEAD                0 — 200 mg per serving

WATCH OUT             200 — 400 mg per serving

TOO MUCH               400 mg per serving or more

Take care of your health, you’re worth it!

Food for thought: According to the Canadian Stroke Network, “One in four adults in Canada has hypertension.”

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