It’s All About Sodium: Topline Foods vs. Home Delivery Prepared Meal Plans

Other companies do more than just deliver the groceries, they cook the whole meal for you. Why shouldn’t I just go there?

One of the other alternatives to grocery store shopping is to order pre-cooked meals for home delivery, which saves the hassle of both shopping and cooking the food, but just like eating out every day, the financial and nutritional costs can really start to add up.

Many sites don’t even provide their nutritional facts, expecting consumers to take their word that the meal plan set out for them is the best for their families; and when they do provide the nutritional facts, they aren’t always a comfort. One diet site in particular applies so much sodium to their food that even on their lowest calorie vegetarian diet, the paired breakfasts, lunches, and dinners they serve frequently exceed the maximum recommended sodium intake for a grown adult. Over half of the times it doesn’t automatically exceed this limit, all it would take to put you over the edge is a single glass of milk. A turkey burger from this company comes with over 1000mg of sodium, compared to the 80 mg found in our ground turkey, and while it’s always possible to add salt according to your tastes, it’s impossible to remove the sodium that’s already there. By spending only a few minutes longer than it takes to reheat these pre-packaged meals, you can take back control not only of the nutrition of your families meals, but the power to customize them according to everyone’s unique preferences.

But if I add salt to my own tastes, won’t I end up with something that’s either just as bad or not as well seasoned?

Not necessarily. You see, not all salts are created equally; and the cheap, refined cooking salt that most cooks use is way down at the bottom of the list.

In nature, salt is more than just a way to get sodium, it also collects and stores 84 minerals essential to the human body. We rarely crave something for no good reason. However, the pure white specs we know as salt have been completely drained of all but one or two of these minerals, which were only added back in after it became clear that people were getting seriously ill without them. Salt cravings now work a lot like empty calories; normally we crave the taste of sodium because it’s supposed to come with all these great minerals we need and might be running low on. However, because the refined salt we find in all our processed foods doesn’t have what we’re looking for, the body gets confused and keeps asking for more. This is one of the reasons why we end up eating two or three times as much salt as we actually need; our cravings are never satisfied because we never actually get what our body is asking for.

On top of that, we’re also getting a lot of salt from processed foods, probably more than we even asked for. Like with pre-cooked foods, almost every processed food is filled with salt based on what someone else thought would make it taste the best. Read as, what will temporarily satisfy those salt cravings you may not even be having. Sodium also finds its way into processed foods through chemicals which have nothing to do with enhancing flavor. Disodium phosphate is used in powdered ingredients to absorb moisture and prevent caking. Sodium alginate is completely flavorless, but added to liquids to increase their viscosity, or thickness. Sodium benzoate is used as a preservative for foods that have to wait days or months between being prepared and being eaten.

By cooking your own foods at home, you automatically cut out a lot of these unnecessary sodium sources, and by using natural, unrefined salts in your cooking, you can provide more nutrition and actually reduce the amount of salt your body craves in one maneuver. To find these healthy, organic, mineral rich salts, use the same rule of thumb you apply to your produce; more natural color means more natural health. Look for salts that are shades of pink, brown or grey.

At Topline Foods, we know that you are the one in the best position to know what’s best for your family. That’s why we’re proud to provide you with all the best information, recipes and raw materials you need to make a smart, healthy, and downright delicious decision. In fact, we even list all the nutritional information on every one of our items right on our website to help you make the best decision.

Our personal thanks to Melanie Miller from Turning Point Wellness for her great information on The Truth About Salt. To contact Melanie, follow this link.