Salty

I can pretty much say that the Lean Cuisine has always been present in my past diets. I love the convenience, some of the options are actually yummy, and they're not too pricey. I especially love the 2/$5.00 deals my local grocery store sometimes have. But Lean Cuisines aren't exactly what they're cracked up to be. Some of them are downright unhealthy. Like most frozen meals, their sodium levels are often through the roof. I visited their website today just to take a look at their nutritional facts. I started in the Comfort Classics section as most of my favorites stem from that category. The Cheese Lasagna with Chicken Scallopini has long been on my Top 10 list. I wasn't surprised to see the nutritional facts right there in the first page, but I was surprised at how few facts they gave. They basically listed the facts that would draw any dieter in: calories and fat. It has 290 calories and 8gr of fat. Fine. That's not too bad. That calorie intake is certainly better than my Double Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese debacle from before. But I said to myself, "where is the rest of the facts?". Well, you have to go to a whole other page by clicking on a teeny tiny link underneath titled, "More Nutritional Facts". Before I go on, you have to wonder why they chose to display certain facts over others. Are they trying to hide something? Did the web designer simply run out of room and had to go for a Plan B? Whatever the case may be, I found it odd. Personally, I believe they were trying to hide the sodium number. That one meal has 580mg of sodium. Umm..what??? I thought this was supposed to be healthy for me? How can I justify eating this so-called diet friendly meal with that kind of number? According to the wikipedia article on sodium, the human requirement for sodium intake is around 500mg a day. Not only does this one meal take care of my sodium intake for the day, it supercedes it. In fact, of all the different dishes I looked at on Lean Cuisine's website, I could not find one with less than 500mg of sodium.

If I'm going to lose weight, I've got to cut some of the sodium out. Now, I'm not a person to ever add salt to my food, I can't stand the way it tastes. I like my food bland and boring. But apparently, sodium can be in everything, including our beloved Lean Cuisines. How can we lower our sodium intake? Courtesy of the American Heart Association, here are a few tips:

-Choose fresh, frozen or canned food items without added salts.
-Select unsalted nuts or seeds, dried beans, peas and lentils.
-Limit the amount of salty snacks you eat, like chips and pretzels.
-Avoid adding salt and canned vegetables to homemade dishes.
-Select unsalted, fat-free broths, bouillons or soups.
-Select fat-free or low-fat milk, low-sodium, low-fat cheeses, as well as low-fat yogurt.
-Specify what you want and how you want it prepared when dining out. Ask for your dish to be prepared without salt.
-Use spices and herbs to enhance the taste of your food.

Thanks, AHA.

Oh, and if anyone from the great company of Lean Cuisine happens to read this, cut the salt, ok?