3 Ways to Lick the Salt Habit

Is your blood pressure just a little high? Taste your food before you salt it.

Seems that letting go of the shaker provides big benefits not just for people with high blood pressure but also for people with prehypertension. It can slash their risk of cardiovascular disease as much as 25 percent. Here's how to cut back.

The Trouble with Prehypertension
Over one-quarter of U.S. adults have prehypertension. That's a condition where your numbers are just a bit high -- 120–139 systolic or 80–89 diastolic -- but not high enough to be officially classified as hypertension. Still, research shows even slightly elevated numbers boost your risk of heart troubles down the road. The solution? Early intervention.

3 Salt Lickers
Here are three easy ways to kick some salt out of your diet:

1. Limit meals out. Typical restaurant meals are notoriously high in sodium. Try cutting your dining-out schedule in half -- unless you know you can special order low-sodium meals.

2. Read labels closely when you buy premade, prepackaged, or canned foods. Words to look for on ingredients lists: sodium chloride, monosodium glutamate, baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), baking powder, disodium phosphate, sodium nitrite, sodium propionate, and sodium sulfite.

3. Put away the saltshaker. Don't add salt before or after cooking. Instead, experiment with flavors like black pepper, lemon pepper, garlic, curry, lime or lemon juice, and red wine vinegar.

Here's a low-sodium eating plan that's proven to help lower blood pressure.

Long term effects of dietary sodium reduction on cardiovascular disease outcomes: observational follow-up of the trials of hypertension prevention (TOHP). Cook, N. R., Cutler, J. A., Obarzanek, E., Buring, J. E., Rexrode, K. M., Kumanyika, S. K., Appel, L. J., Whelton, P. K., BMJ 2007 Apr 28;334(7599):885.