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It turns out many people don’t read the labels on the foods they buy at the grocery store. This means there are many people who are walking around consuming high levels of sodium in their diets, which can lead to high blood pressure and all the illnesses associated with it.
Many processed foods are cured with sodium. Many are stored in sodium. If you ever did decide to look at a can of soup, you’ll see astounding numbers, if you know hot to interpret them. For instance, a can of one big name soup contains 940 milligrams, or mgs, of sodium, or salt, per serving. The can says it has 3.5 servings in it. If you’re a typical person who can easily eat a can of soup in one serving, this means you’ve just consumed around 3,200 mgs of sodium.
Currently, the recommended daily sodium intake for an average adult is 2,400 in the United States, and 1,600 in the United Kingdom. The National Research Council says the high range shouldn’t surpass 3,300 mg of sodium a day. With just one can of soup, the average person would have consumed the entire daily recommended dose of salt with one meal.
What kind of problems can result with high blood pressure? Stroke is the big one, followed by TIA, or Transient ischemic attack, which is a series of mini strokes. It can affect your vision. It can affect your memory and give you hallucinations, making you believe things have happened that haven’t. It can lead to kidney disease. And, of course, it can lead to all kinds of heart problems, including heart attacks.
Packaged foods are the worst, especially canned goods. To create these products so they can last a long time, it takes a lot of sodium. It may not taste as strong as regular salt that you put on yourself, but it is, and it’s gone all through the foods you might eat as opposed to sitting on top of foods you might put salt on. Also, in packaged frozen goods such as frozen dinners, you’ll often see a pretty high sodium content. Some people who do look at these labels see the numbers, but don’t realize that one package isn’t often considered as one serving by the manufacturers. So, people have to make sure they look at both numbers to get it right.
Although everyone who gets blood pressure might not get there because of too much sodium in their foods, an overwhelming majority do. Therefore, it’s imperative that you try to reduce your sodium content before you’re put on a regimen of blood pressure pills and restricted diets. Please read the labels and make some informed choices. You can easily season foods on your own that will contain much less sodium, and you might actually find that you’ll enjoy it better.
See more:
The Dangers of A High Sodium Diet
Sodium: Are You Getting Too Much
Sodium Fact Sheet