Salt Shockers! 5 Foods as Sodium-Packed as Soy Sauce

As any bloat-minded girl knows, it’s always a good idea to ask for the low-sodium soy sauce when ordering that spicy tuna roll, as just 2 tsp of the regular kind can contain a whopping 680mg sodium. But there are other foods—many seemingly healthy—that are also surprisingly high in salt, according to Amy Jamieson-Petonic, RD, spokesperson for The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Her recommendation: Aim for no more than 2,300mg of sodium per day (1500mg if you have a family history of cardiovascular disease). In addition to that jeans-and-rings-don’t-fit-feeling, a high-sodium diet can also increase risk for high blood pressure and heart disease, so trimming the salt from your diet is a smart move. Here are five places to start:
 

1. Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese is a dieters’ mainstay, and while it’s a good source of calcium and protein, it can be loaded with sodium, often containing 900mg per cup. If you love cottage cheese, look for low-sodium versions whenever possible, but a better choice is plain yogurt, which has about a 150mg, or an ounce of Swiss cheese, which has just has 54mg.

Tammy Lakatos Shames, RD, certified personal trainer and co-author of The Secret To Skinny: How Salt Makes You Fat and the 4-Week Plan to Drop a Size and Get Healthier also suggests mild, spreadable farmer’s cheese, which contains only 120mg sodium per ounce.

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