Rx for Salt: Cut It Out

Here's what you can do to reduce the salt in your diet and minimize its ill effects.

Choose reduced-sodium processed foods. Commercially prepared soups can be major sodium offenders. Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup has 890 milligrams of sodium per cup. Better choice: Campbell's Healthy Request Chicken Noodle, with 450 milligrams. Go lower with Campbell's Low Sodium Chicken Noodle, with 120 milligrams for the whole can (though even the company says it's not a taste winner). In August, Campbell's plans to introduce soups flavored with sea salt, which contains less sodium than other salts.

Start your day wisely. Cheerios, oatmeal and shredded wheat are all healthy whole grains. But Cheerios has 210 milligrams of sodium per ounce, compared with zero for the other two.

Nurse your craving for salt. Soothe it with an olive -- a single one has about 45 milligrams of sodium -- or an ounce of cocktail peanuts (110 milligrams for the regular salted nuts; 55 milligrams for the lightly salted) or taco chips (about 110 milligrams per ounce.)

Watch out for salty surprises . Canned, bottled and processed foods highest in sodium include tomato products. Ketchup has 190 milligrams per tablespoon. Regular V8 vegetable juice contains 620 milligrams per eight ounces; spicy V8 has 720 milligrams -- nearly half a day's worth for those over 50. Two tablespoons of salsa have about 150 milligrams of sodium. By comparison, Giant No-Salt-Added tomato sauce has just 15 milligrams of sodium per quarter-cup. Eight ounces of low-sodium V8 contains about 160 milligrams. Other leading sources of hidden sodium include bread, bottled salad dressings (choose oil and vinegar instead), marinades, sauces, luncheon meats, cheese and frozen dinners.

Rinse canned food where possible . Run canned beans and other vegetables as well as canned fish, chicken and meat under water to remove some of the sodium added in processing.

Pig out on fruit and vegetables . They're packed with potassium, which helps counteract sodium's effects on blood pressure. ?

Join Sally Squires, author of "Secrets of the Lean Plate Club," today from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. at www.leanplateclub.com, where you can also subscribe to the free LPC e-mail newsletter.