Sodium in our food

Foods high in sodium

• Some of the worst culprits are processed meats, things like sausage, bacon, luncheon meats.
• Three slices of lean ham has 1,025 mg of sodium, which is almost half of our daily recommended intake.
• Smoked fish is another culprit for being high in sodium.
• Read the labels on canned vegetables, canned soup, canned tomato-type products that are typically high in sodium.
• One cup of canned soup will have anywhere from 600 to 1,300 mg of sodium.

• Frozen dinners can have anywhere from 500 to up to 1,600 mg of sodium
• Pretzels can be a low-fat snack but a quarter-cup of pretzels can have up to 700 mg of sodium.
• Pickled products and sauces you cook with can be high in salt.

"You really have to watch if you're having a high-salt food you've got to watch what you do for the rest of the day," Beck said.

Also, be sure to drink a lot of water. Beck said the average female should be getting eight cups of fluid a day and the average man, 12 cups of fluid a day. Most importantly, be sure to read the food labels on the products you're buying.

"Now that we're getting our new (food) labels...choose food products that list no more than 20 per cent of the daily value as sodium," Beck said. "You're looking for things like low-sodium, low in salt, sodium-free and basically low in sodium, low in salt means that there will be 50 per cent less sodium there as in the original product."