In the previous post, I pictured breakfast items that contain 500  milligrams of sodium or less.  While none of these items required much time or effort to whip up a tasty, heart healthy start to your day, lunch requires more consideration.  If you enter into the noon hour without a plan, you could easily consume your 1500 milligrams of sodium in this single meal alone!  Picture this:

Seventy-seven percent of our salt comes from processed foods and only twelve percent comes from fresh.  The above picture ranges from low to high sources of sodium, not low to high sources of nutrition.  Milk contains more sodium than soda, but nobody’s going to be encouraging you to drink 3 glasses of soda everyday.   A single cookie contains less sodium than a tossed salad with dressing, yet 1 fork full of salad has significantly more health benefits than the entire cookie.  The key to enjoying a lunch that contains a reasonable amount of sodium is to plan and pack ahead of time.

For more  information on hidden sources of sodium check out Lauren’s post “10 Sneaky Sources of Sodium“.  Picture dinner on the table coming up next!

Categories: Nutrition & Wellness