The Worst Salty Foods

The Saltiest Foods of 2011

Just reading about these salt-laden dishes might make your blood pressure skyrocket. The following restaurant foods are the worst of the worst
By David Zinczenko menshealth
 

Watch Out for These Salt Bombs

The Saltiest Foods of 2011 // pasta with shrimp © RubyTuesdays.com

Image: RubyTuesdays.com

Imagine pouring one and a half teaspoons of salt directly into your mouth. Can you taste it? Blah, blech! You’d shed an ocean of tears trying to choke down those tongue-tingling crystals.

Yet, if you’re a typical American, you eat that much salt every single day. And that’s one primary reason why 50 percent of us are considered at risk for high blood pressure.

I know, that sounds impossible—you seldom if ever reach for the salt shaker, right? Well, you don’t have to: Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that most of us consume about 3,400 mg of sodium a day, but only 5 percent of it comes from home cooking. Some occurs in foods naturally, but the overwhelming majority of the sodium you eat—77 percent—comes foods sold in supermarkets and restaurants. Heart disease is the number-one killer of Americans, and sodium is one of the primary culprits.

We should be eating no more than 2,300 mg a day, and less—about 1,500 mg—if we’re at risk for high blood pressure. And yet, while researching my latest book, The Eat This, Not That! No-Diet Diet, I uncovered countless restaurant meals with one, two, even three days' worth of salt in them. Think I’m exaggerating? Take a peek at the saltiest dishes coming from America’s kitchens. (Learn more about the book here!)

6 Comments
More From menshealth
Keywords:
Related Content