What the world needs now is more no salt added food! I AM SERIOUS.
Low sodium foods are on my mind a lot. I love to eat at restaurants but my body has been rebelling against salt and other forms of sodium. So I’ve been cooking at home more. BUT so many things have added salt. Even food that naturally has salt is being give more by manufacturers.
What to do? I made a handy chart to help myself and others identify low sodium foods faster when shopping.
who cares about sodium levels in their food?
I want to be healthy and I want you and everyone else to live long and prosper also. To do that we need less salt! :-0 For real.
“No salt added” is my favorite phrase to read on a food label! It means that a food producer is consciously working to reduce hypertension among their customers. It means that maker cares. I appreciate them for doing that.
Shout out to Organicville ! I love mustard and this brand makes me super happy. They have a great tasting, no added salt, stone ground mustard that has ZERO sodium. And they’re employee owned. Could they be replicated?
The issue is that I don’t know of enough brands like Organicville.
NOTE TO SELF: find more items from this brand.
Where can you get healthy condiments?
So now the issue becomes finding caring condiment brands like Organicville.
Whole Foods is my go-to grocery store. I hate shopping at multiple places (or shopping at all) and running around the store checking all the labels is extremely tiring. And sadly the search function is not always helpful when I try to find things online before going into the store.
Amazon is an easy place to find what’s available on a wider scale than a single store. Yes, there are issues. I’m (over)thinking many of them. BUT It’s a good place to look for brands to try. Then if you like the brand you can support them by getting your local grocery to carry their products.
Wow! that turned into a lobbying job :-0 This is all so hard. Eating should be simple.
The no salt added challenge
So, I said all of that to say that I’m searching for and then testing “no sodium added” condiments.
Step one: make a list of the ten condiments I use the most (or rather want to use).
- ketchup
- mayonnaise
- mustard
- relish
- salsa
- soy sauce
- tabasco (?hot sauce – do I care which?)
- tahini
- tartar sauce
- vinegar
Step Two: find a brand to test. This is where the Amazon yes/no conversation starts in my head.
- ketchup
- mayonnaise
- mustard
- Organicville has me covered. Per their website they have a lot of products but I haven’t seen them at Whole Foods <confused face>
- relish
- salsa
- soy sauce
- tabasco (?hot sauce – do I care which?)
- tahini
- tartar sauce
- vinegar
Low sodium versus no salt added
Why is this a big deal? The lower the percentage of sodium in a food the better.
Which makes both/and the ideal situation. But labels can say “sodium free” yet still have sodium as long as it’s 5mg or less. As if five, four, three, two, one, and zero are the same. It’s mind-boggling.
When should you just make your own condiments?
Making your own condiments is an option – IN THEORY. What kind of person are you?
In reality? come on now! That’s doing a lot on a regular. Maybe the occasional salad dressing but … Anyway, we’ll come back to this.
In the meantime Modern Survival Blog makes homemade condiments look easy – or at least worth trying. And Kris Bordessa at Attainable-Sustainable blog has useful information to make condiments at home seem like a new normal thing to do.
The immediate issue with making your own anything is that now you have multiple ingredients to source versus the one finished product.
When do I use these various things?
conclusion? maybe …
what? What would be the best case condiment scenario?
It would be nice if every condiment had an easily available no salt added version.
That’s a basic, foundational step. I’m aware enough to know that some ingredients naturally have sodium so some condiments might be near impossible to be at zero but there’s no reason to add more salt.
More foods would be low, or at least a lot lower, sodium if the manufacturer just didn’t add salt.
Yes, I know they say there are some reasons for doing it. None of their reasons are worth the cost to our bodies.
Idea for the Future:
Find out what it take for me (or someone, any one) to create an entire line of no salt added condiments? Maybe, I could curate the best brands I find and then “white label” them all under on brand.
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