You can limit
sodium in your diet by counting the milligrams of
sodium in everything you eat. You will need to read food labels and look up the
sodium content of foods that do not have labels. This method allows more
flexibility in your diet. If you eat one high-sodium food, you can balance it
with very low-sodium foods during the rest of the day.
You can learn to choose lower-sodium foods by comparing food labels
for the sodium content. For example, compare the following foods:
- Tomatoes, canned, low-sodium,
0.5 cups:
15 mg to 30 mg sodium
- Tomatoes, canned,
0.5 cups:
220 mg to
350 mg sodium
If you choose foods that are canned without sodium, you will have
room in your diet to include other foods you like that might have more sodium.
In the example above, if you chose fresh tomatoes instead of canned, the sodium
content would be even less (one medium tomato has
11 mg of sodium).
