Wondering why your ankles are swelling at work or why your knees feel like jelly beans? Obviously exercise and good nutrition are the keys to changing these trends but one of the most overlooked pieces to the puzzle is our sodium in-take. Like most things in life too much of a good thing can be dangerous. As you probably know sodium is necessary to maintain good health but too much can be very dangerous – causing a myriad of issues especially in the heart and joints and keeping you from obtaining optimum health. But what to do? I’ve found a lot of sites about “hidden salt” but so far every one I’ve looked at just said “read the label” or gave lists with every type of food imaginable. This works if you have four hours to plan and shop for $100 worth of food but even then we still have to remember to look at every label. Most of us don’t have that kind of time so we check the ones that we suspect and just grab the items we think are safe. What I didn’t find in my review were any that actually pinpointed what I call the “surprise sodium”. Below I’ve listed my top 5 surprises and I’m challenging you to find your surprise sodium and post a comment back to this hub. Remember that experts generally suggest a healthy diet tops out at around 2300 to 2500 mgs of sodium a day while a low sodium diet is suggested to be between 800 and 1200 mgs a day. Also below as an added bonus, check out the top 3 most notable sodium info finds, although they didn’t make the top 5 surprise list, they are significant in their own right.

5. Pesto Sauce – (sun dried tomato) just a quarter cup is almost a whole day’s allocation. Certainly I was expecting it to be high but since it was basically based in vegetables and not meat, I thought I was making a better choice – wrong!

4. Cheese – probably one of my top 3 favorite foods – and unfortunately, very few of us can really eat just one ounce of cheese and be happy! The biggest surprise here is the difference in yellow cheeses like cheddar versus Swiss cheese. Cheddar has approximately 180 mgs per 1 ounce versus Swiss that generally has about 60 mgs per 1 ounce. Although Swiss was not one of my favorites, interestingly enough the less sodium I ate in my regular diet, the more I enjoyed Swiss cheese – taste buds or psychology? Probably a combination…

3. Fast Food – while we keep hearing about the fat content, you’ll be amazed at the lack of foods with a reasonable sodium content. Next time you pull in a drive-thru, ask the attendant for a copy of the nutritional publication, take it home and study it when you get a chance – even if you didn’t get fries and you picked something you thought was less risky than the high fat juicy triple burger, you’ve probably blown your sodium allowance for at least two-thirds of the day on that one meal.

2. Frozen raw chicken wings – the difference in brands can be amazing. Frankly I was purchasing by price and buying the store brand. It was saving me a significant amount over the higher priced Tyson brand – but I finally checked the label. Both the contents looked about the same size and had approximately the same taste, but the difference in the sodium content was shocking – the store brand had 3 times as much sodium for the same portion size.

1. Sliced bread! Yep – this was the number one surprise in my book. That healthy veggie sandwich you fixed for lunch today with sprouts, sliced tomatoes and sliced cucumbers on 7 whole grain bread with a dollop of Dijon mustard is probably worth almost 700 mgs – about three fourths the recommended daily allowance for a “low sodium” diet. Reading the bread labels is imperative to ensure you are not over indulging but be careful, the actual serving sizes vary so be sure you are calculating the same number of slices in a portion. I personally buy a white, Italian style bread that was actually our favorite sandwich loaf before the sodium scare and it turns out that 2 slices have 190 mgs versus my favorite 15 whole grain brand that has 280 mgs per slice!

My most notable overall “other” tips and tidbits?

1. Corn chips are a significantly better snack choice than tortilla chip snacks.

2. “Low Fat” or “Fat Free” on the label far too often means the sodium content is considerably higher than it’s full fat counterpart and finally…

3. Drinking water has sodium – granted it’s minimal but it’s there and needs to be counted in your overall intake. The EPA says that one 8oz glass of tap water contains just under 12.5mgs of sodium so as we do our best to drink the recommended 8 glasses a day, we are ingesting approximately 100 mgs just in our direct water intake alone - not counting what we take in from cooking with tap water. If this is an issue for you, try purchasing sodium free bottled water for drinking and cooking.

Hope this helps, I look forward to seeing your “surprise sodium” finds…