By Shari Lyle Soffe

 

 It All Adds Up

 

You would think after all of this time I wouldn’t make a mistake like this, but I just prepared a “killer” dinner for my husband who is on a salt restricted diet. Sadly, I don’t mean “killer” dinner in a good way. Many people want to watch their salt intake whether medically necessary or not, so I want to pass along a warning about ingredients in a recipe. I try to watch the sodium in such things as canned soup or boxed prepared foods, but I never thought to check and add up the many ingredients that go into a homemade recipe. Fortunately I didn’t actually kill my husband but the thought of what could have happened was frightening.

 

Last night I made enchiladas, Mexican rice, and a salad. The Mexican rice (brown to keep us healthy) was seasoned with a bouillon cube and about a quarter cup of salsa from a jar. Then I made chicken cheese enchiladas using one can of cream of mushroom soup, one jar of green salsa, shredded cheese, one can of chicken, etc.

 

I used one bouillon cube at 1270 mg sodium per cube, and ¼ cup of salsa for another 460 mg of sodium to cook the rice. The Mexican rice had roughly 1736 mg. sodium. 

 

The ingredients that went into the enchiladas included one can of soup at 1740 mg of sodium per can.  The canned chicken was 675 mg of sodium, and the salsa 2480mg of sodium for one jar and the shredded cheese was 720 mg of sodium for an 8 oz pkg.  The enchiladas came to more than 5615 mg of sodium. 

 

230 mg. of sodium was in the salsa that went into the salad dressing plus 230 mg of sodium in the mayonnaise.  That is a total of 460 mg to serve two people!

 

The entire meal served four and came to 1457 mg. sodium per person!!! I am embarrassed to admit that I made this meal. I should have known better. I was not prepared to find so much sodium in a little bouillon cube or in a jar of salsa but that is no excuse. (The stores carry bouillon with no sodium.)In the future I will check the labels on all ingredients that I put into a recipe and hopefully keep my husband (and myself) around for many more years. I decided to share this just in case there are others who have made the same mistake.

I hope this gives a heads up to others to use the nutrition labels on foods and add up the ingredients you use to prepare a meal. Be sure you check the serving size at the top of the nutrition label.  Sometimes the nutritional information is for as little as one tablespoon. We need to keep our loved ones healthy and to do that we must be vigilant about the food we serve.