Complete Idiot's Guide to Low Sodium Meals will Help you a lot - The Complete Idiot's Guide to Low Sodium Meals
How much sodium is good for your health? In this article - Low Sodium Recipes ~ all you need to know about Low Sodium Recipe, Sodium and Your health, you will find out how much sodium is good for your health, low sodium recipe that you will help to keep the level of sodium in your body minimal, why you need sodium in your body, high sodium recipes and many more. Ironically, you may be trying to keep the level of sodium in your body low by just adding just a pinch of sodium chloride (table salt) to your food, without knowing that a pinch of sodium chloride (table salt) will make up a high sodium content for your body. This happens especially when you are not aware that most of the foods you consume contain enough sodium. According to myoclinic.com, "majority of the sodium — 77 percent — comes from eating prepared or processed foods that contain the mineral.
Why do we need sodium recipes?
What quantity of sodium is an for our health?
Sodium is necessary for maintaining fluid balance in our body, as well as the function of nerve and muscle cells. So why is there so much attention on avoiding sodium as if it's bad for you?
Sodium is good for the body?
We need food containing sodium for the body to function properly. Sodium play a great role in the maintainace of the body fluid. it also plays great role in transmission of impulses by the nerves in the body
Why is too much sodium bad for the human body?
It is the function of the kidneys to control/regulate the quantity of sodium in the body at any given time. When the level of sodium in the body is low, the kidney will automatically reduce the rate of excretion of sodium; but when the level of sodium in the body is high, the kidney will automatically increase the rate at which sodium is excreted from the urine.
If for any reason, the kidney fails in its function of excretion of sodium, sodium starts to accumulate in the blood. Since sodium attracts and holds water, there will be a consequential increase in the volume of the blood. The increase in blood volume will now create extra workload for the heat since the heart has to move more blood through the blood vessels.
Diseases that can cause destruction of sodium regulation
According to myoclinic, diseases like congestive heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver and chronic kidney disease (CDK) can lead to inability of the body to regulate sodium.
Effect(s) of too much sodium in the body
Too much sodium can contribute to high blood pressure in certain people, and cause an increase in fluid retention which can be life-threatening in some conditions.
Who is prone to High Blood Pressure resulting from intake of high sodium recipe?
Who is more prone to the effects of sodium?
Individuals vary in their sensitivity to the effects of sodium. Some people are very sensitive to sodium while others are not. If you are sensitive to sodium, then you are likely to retain more sodium easily which will eventually lead to excess fluid retention and increased blood pressure. This will also increase your chance of having high blood pressure which can lead to kidney and cardiovascular diseases.
How much sodium do we need?
About 500mg of sodium a day is considered the least you need. That's 1/4 teaspoon of table salt. There is no official recommended daily intake for sodium. However, healthy individuals are advised to limit sodium intake to 2,400mg, and that figure is used for determining the percent daily value for sodium on food labels.
Consult with your physician for clarification about the advice you got.
What is meant by serving? Is it one meal, or one food? If every serving of food you ate contained 400 mg. of sodium, by the end of the day you could be well over the recommended amount of sodium for a healthy individual, yet you would have still followed the advice. If 500mg per meal was meant, you would get 1,500mg a day, which would be far more healthy.
The recommendation is to aim for a sodium intake between 2000 and 2500 milligrams daily. The next question is, how can you tell how much you are getting in your diet? To some extent there are food labels: But many foods come without labels and it's not realistic to be counting up what you are eating all day long. So let's take a look at the sodium content (low sodium recipe) of some common foods, and how you can make a judgment fairly quickly as to whether it's high sodium, or reasonable to eat.
Low Sodium Recipe
Most low sodium recipe doesn’t have label. It is mostly high sodium recipe that always contains labels showing that it contains high amount of sodium.
Fresh Fruits and Vegetables are low sodium recipes
Fresh fruits and vegetables, for instance, are extremely low in sodium-all of them. The only time you'll find high sodium content is when these foods are processed: Dried, pickled, fermented-think pickles, olives, and some dried fruits. Canned vegetables have sodium added for flavoring and preservatives. They also have labels so you can see how much is there.
Frozen vegetables are low sodium recipes.
Frozen vegetables are typically quite low in sodium.
Fresh meats (including chicken and fish) are not high in sodium. Again, if they come in a box and are pre-prepared you can see on the label what you're getting. Take a close look at processed and smoked meats, such as ham and bologna. Dairy products aren't usually a source of high sodium content either, but check the label on cheeses and cottage cheeses-more processing equals more sodium.
Baked goods have sodium in them from the baking soda or baking powder (sodium bicarbonate) used for leavening. So don't be surprised if you pick up a loaf of bread and find there are 120 milligrams of sodium in a slice. Yes, 120 sounds like a high number, but remember you are shooting for 2000 a day, so it's not a large percent of your targeted total.
High Sodium Recipe
So where does most of our high sodium intake come from: Processed foods, no doubt, including canned soups and stews, frozen dinners, and the biggest culprit of all, fast food. Fortunately, these all have labels. Any fast food restaurant will gladly hand over a sheet of their nutritional information (or you can look it up on line!) Chinese food also contains a high amount of sodium from their cooking ingredient, monosodium glutamate. Most places will be happy to omit it when preparing your dish, but the soups and other prepared foods (such as egg rolls) do contain significant amounts of sodium.
The best way to keep your sodium intake from climbing too high is to limit fast foods, prepared foods, and otherwise processed foods.
Reference
How much sodium do I actually need? Retrived December 12, 2009, from http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/how-much-sodium-do-actually-need.html
Beebe, L. (2008, March 4). Sodium - How Much Do I Need?. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Sodium---How-Much-Do-I-Need?&id=1025283
American Heart Association Low-Salt Cookbook, 3rd Edition: A Complete Guide to Reducing Sodium and Fat in Your Diet
A veritable Low Salt Low sodium Diet Book - from the American Heart Association
A veritable Low Salt Low sodium Diet Book - from the American Heart Association