Low Salt Diet or Sodium Restricted Diet

Today the skilled gastroenterologists at Your GI Center want to discuss a low sodium diet. This instruction is only intended for general guidelines and should not be considered to be as valuable as seeking medical advice from your physician. The only way to know the appropriate diet for you for certain is to consult a nutritionist or your physician. If you would like, please schedule an appointment with our office to discuss what diet is right for you. You need your own physician’s permission before implementation of any new diet plan.

What is the Purpose of a Low Sodium Diet?

Low salt diet or sodium restricted diet as it is called at times, is designed to handle several conditions including controlling blood pressure, kidney conditions, and cirrhosis of liver to mention a few.

How Can it Help?

Used in appropriate situations, it can keep you from swelling by keeping low salt load in the body. The best way to manage the chemicals that spread throughout the body, is of course to manage those that are within the body.

What Should I Know Before Starting a Low Sodium Diet?

This diet when not used properly and at times in combination with other medications can also cause you danger by unbalancing the electrolytes in your body. It is crucially important to consult your treating physician before starting any sort of diet; this included.

In general, you should read labels of all food items and avoid most of the preserved and canned food items, because, salt is used as a preservative in many canned food. Your cooking should be with minimum salt and certainly, no table salt should be used whatsoever. Following is a table to help you out:

 

Food Items Recommended Not recommended
Meat Plain meat, grilled meat, Plain hamburgers etc Preserved meat like sausage, hot dog, cured meat etc.
Milk and milk-products Mild to moderate amount of milk is fine Cheese, butter and other milk-products that has higher concentration of salt or sodium
Vegetables Fresh vegetables are fine Cured or preserved or treated vegetables that has high salt content
Carbohydrate Rice, flour If labels indicate higher sodium content
Soups, Snacks Low sodium soups, home made soups with less salt, unsalted snacks, chips, nuts Salted snacks, chips, soups, instant soup mixes which generally has high salt content
Flavorings/ additives In general spices and herbs are fine Soy sauce, LSG, preserved olives, pickles, Gravy mixes and in general, be careful about bottled mixes or sauces which tend to have high salt content

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