Lick the Salt Habit

We should all know by now that foods like deli meats, pizza and potato chips have tons of sodium, but did you know that high salt levels also lurk in foods you might not suspect, like…bread?

A 2018 survey by World Action of Salt and Health in London took a long, hard look at over 2,000 bread products from over 30 countries, including the United States, and found that more than half of them had over 500 milligrams in every two slices of bread.  Worse yet, a third of all breads delivered more than 1,130 mg of actual salt.  Yikes!

Compare those results with the American Heart Association’s recommendations of not more than 2,300 mg of sodium over the course of an entire day, and you’ll see that bread is a sneaky contributor to sodium overconsumption.  But why is there so much salt in bread?  Because commercial bakers use sodium in bread production to boost flavor and act as a preservative as well.

So, what can we, as consumers, do about it?  When perusing the labels on your favorite loaves in the grocery store, look for the ones that provide about 130 mg (or less) of sodium per slice.

—
Photo Credit:  Evan Lorne / Shutterstock.com