03/12/2024

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Label-reading for heart health: Do I prioritize sodium or saturated fat?

Label-reading for heart health: Do I prioritize sodium or saturated fat?

Here’s a dilemma for you. I went to the grocery keep for President’s Alternative frozen hamburgers. I seemed at the lean burgers and the sirloin ones. Hmm. With the lean burgers I get less fats, but a lot more salt than the sirloin kinds. Choose your poison correct?

I selected the sirloin ones. Was that the ideal connect with? Beneath is a photo I took of the two packages in the keep (blue package deal is the lean). Seeking ahead to hearing what you think!”


Debating around smaller variations like this may perhaps not appear to be needed, but if you have experienced a heart assault or cardiac bypass like this particular person, you may possibly also be giving some really serious believed about what you can fairly do to hold your arteries as clear as achievable, though however savoring your daily life.

BBQ with burgers

Here’s my response:

“Hi Bill*,

Many thanks for sharing. What a terrific case in point of this irritating tradeoff. They’re trying to make them tasty, a single way or the other.

How to opt for concerning two sub-exceptional selections? If one wellbeing worry (blood force or cholesterol) was extra a problem for you than the other, that would assist us choose.

Wouldn’t it be pleasant if we could have both decrease in fats and sodium? 1 way to do that would be to make them from scratch.

But if you required the usefulness of pre-built burgers, you could hunt all around for that – lessen sodium and decrease saturated fats.

These ones are smaller sized, so the quantities on the label are reduce, but even if we alter to a serving measurement of 142g, like the examples you sent, it would be 6.7 grams saturated fat, 366mg sodium, so not a negative option. And if you are contented with just the more compact burger, even better.

An additional alternative is a hen or turkey or meatless burger? But I know that may possibly not fairly hit the location in the similar way.

There is not definitely a suitable reply on choosing involving these two. You do not take in that kind of detail usually, so the relaxation of your diet regime balances it.

You could also balance that day by carrying out items like going easy on condiments like mustard and ketchup (to restrict sodium) or topping with avocado alternatively of cheese (to limit sat fats).

I hope that helps! My answers are never basic are they? Haha. Both way, love!

– Cheryl”

* Of study course I have kept the name anonymous and came up with this quite resourceful pseudonym in its place.


If you are imagining that I should really say to remain absent from red meat completely, truly the science isn’t that business there. A lot more crops yes, but it’s not clear that entirely ditching red meat (or meat in normal) is improved than simply chopping back again to make home for much more cardioprotective food items like veggies, fruit, beans, lentils, fish, nuts, seeds, and so on.

An additional possibility for lessen saturated unwanted fat and sodium may possibly be a veggie burger, dependent on which one you pick! See my review of that class if you are curious.

Or you may well be indicating sodium does not make any difference. But inspite of headline-generating variances of impression, most professionals concur that averting abnormal sodium is a fantastic concept.

If you have these or other questions about heart overall health and diet, you’re welcome to obtain my free book, The Sweet Location Manual to Feeding on Effectively Soon after a Coronary heart Celebration.

The base line

Regardless of whether it’s sugar, sodium, saturated unwanted fat, or something else, we’re normally faced with these small tradeoffs. No stress in this article: 1 food will not make or break your heart health. But if which is a precedence for you, I fully grasp the drive to management what you can. Why not?

If you can uncover one thing that is optimum on all counts, and nevertheless preferences fantastic, wonderful. That’s the “sweet spot!” But it’s elusive. If you make a compromise in a single space, you can generally balance elsewhere. It’s your overall eating patterns that issue.

Variable in your unique values and tastes, as very well as what nourishment science tells us, and then determine what goes in your procuring basket. There’s no proper or wrong response here.

If you want more self esteem in the label-examining section, you may possibly love “3 matters to verify on Canada’s new nutrition labels if you have heart concerns,” or this one: “Should I look at the cholesterol on nourishment labels?”

Or reserve a just one-on-a person with me to converse about the particular food items you’re curious about.


* This article is not sponsored. None of my posts are sponsored. I link to certain goods for educational uses only. 😊❤️