6. Red Meat
I know, I know. I know what you’re thinking: “I’m not going to give up eating burgers and steaks.” Am I right? Wrong! Depending on how much read meat you eat and how it’s prepared you may need to give it up to do the ultimate: Live Longer (now isn’t that better than just dying over a piece of meat?)!
A healthy eating plan should have only a small amount, if any, of saturated or trans-fats. Fatty foods are bad for both the heart and blood vessels. An 18 oz. ribeye at regular steakhouse without any sauce has about 1140 calories, 79 grams of fat and 1,500 mg of sodium.
5. Frozen Pizza
It’s an easy and inexpensive dinner, right? All you have to do is turn your oven on to 425 degrees, and pop that baby in until the cheese starts to melt and the crust turns golden brown.
But frozen pizzas are bad news if you’re watching your sodium intake. The combination of cheese, cured meats, tomato sauce, and crust adds up the milligrams pretty quickly. What’s worse is that manufacturers add a lot of salt to preserve all that flavor in the freezer. One serving of frozen pizza can have as much as 1,000 milligrams of sodium, and you know you never have leftover frozen pizza, which means you likely consume way more.
4. Donuts
The sweet, soft, moist donuts you love are indeed one of the foods to avoid if you have high blood pressure or just want to be a healthy person. The ring-shaped fried dough snack is worse than many other snacks in the market. And no, you can’t just have one because one donut can have more than 300 calories with 42% fat and 54% carbs.
Being fried, it contains lots of saturated and trans fats — more trans fat than peanut butter, chocolate bars or even chips. For all of these reasons and more, donuts need to be avoided for a healthy heart.
3. Bouillon cubes, Canned and Instant Soup
On average, a cup of canned chicken noodle soup contains as much as 760 milligrams of sodium. Eat the entire can — which makes two-and-a-half servings – and you’ll get 1,800 milligrams of sodium.
Instead, you should look for brands with reduced-sodium or no salt added. For instant soup or oriental noodles, reduce the sodium by using half of the seasoning packet.
2. Ready-to-eat boxed meals and side dishes
Along with the convenience comes a hefty dose of sodium. A 5-ounce frozen turkey and gravy dinner can have 787 milligrams of sodium. Half of a 16.5 ounce chicken pot pie can pack 800 milligrams of sodium. Do yourself and your body a favor and cook instead of just microwaving your food. Or better yet, try one of those meal delivery services where they do the grocery shopping for you and all you have to do is follow directions.
1. Canned Spaghetti Sauce
These processed, store-bought tomato sauces can contain a great deal of sodium (one popular brand has 480 milligrams per half-cup serving) and can directly affect the ability of the kidneys to remove excess water. Water retention contributes to elevations in blood pressure, placing your heart into overdrive. If you’re interested in making homemade spaghetti, we suggest closely monitoring the amount of salt and salty ingredients that you add in.