As careful as I try to be I mess up all the time. Here’s a perfect example. I was planning our meals for the week and decided that we would have black beans and rice, homemade tortilla chips, green beans and fruit. Then I thought to myself, “We haven’t had yellow rice in a long time. I’ll get some at the store.”
I was grocery shopping later that day and walked down the aisle with the Mexican foods. I grabbed two boxes of yellow rice and put them in my cart. I finished shopping, waited in line FOREVER and went home. Two days later I was getting the black beans going and grabbed the boxes of rice. I glanced at the nutrition label and this is what I saw.
I looked at the serving sizes to make sure that enormous sodium amount wasn’t for the entire box. No, that yellow rice really had 820 mg of sodium per serving. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t serve that to my family.
So instead of yellow rice we had a mixture of brown and white rice, which is how I usually make rice for black beans. I’m returning the rice boxes to the store this afternoon.
That experience made me think about how easy it is to assume that a food is healthy to eat but in reality it’s not very good for you. I falsely assumed that yellow rice would be fine but I was wrong. We have been really trying to watch the amount of sodium we eat and 820 mg in one serving of rice wasn’t fine for me or my family.
This isn’t the first time it’s happened to me. Even after I lost my weight I sometimes get lax about checking the nutrition labels and let extra fat, sugar or sodium slip into our diets. You’d think I’d learn!
Have you ever gotten something home and decided, “I’m not eating this!” Diane
That is my husband
) I now see it as a GREAT teaching tool for the child.
frequently
and as much as it used to annoy me (I wont lie. wasnt the decision changing but the money. Im frugal that way
Thank you for reminding us that we are ALL HUMAN.
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No actually I don’t. I ate it and then never bought it again.
But that’s really a lot of sodium in that rice, good for you you decided not to eat it.
I am guilty of NOT looking a sodium content. I focus only on calories, carbs, and sugars to decide – not good. Thanks for helping me realize I gotta give that sodium a smack down, too. {{SMACK!!}}
Yum Yucky´s last fabulous musings ..Tasting! Marshmallow Pebbles
I actually never return it, I sadly ignored it until it rot. I am so bad. But in some instances I give it away to charities. They usually need a lot more food and even a lot more calories.
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I have to admit that I am like Yum Yucky on this one. Time to start paying more attention.
Karen@WaistingTime´s last fabulous musings ..A Bicycle Built for Two
Wow that is a lot of sodium! I wouldn’t have served that to my family either. I normally don’t pay super close attention to sodium, but try to limit things like prepackaged stuff.
I usually watch the sodium content like a hawk. Yes, I too have bought things at the grocery store and later thought better of eating them but I’m lazy and didn’t take it back good for you for taking it back.
I usually read your blog every morning during coffee time but last week I was working online during that time so I didn’t get to I missed you.
Susan´s last fabulous musings ..Back To Being Me
I watch sodium BIG time (as you know) and you are right – it sneaks in EVERYWHERE.
The one that irritates me the most is frozen veggies. It really bugs me that plain frozen veggies will have salt added.
Another trap is ‘vegetarian’ foods. Yes, they have no meat, but they are LOADED with sodium.
And I have discovered I have to REcheck labels all the time. Manufacturers often change their ‘formulas’. so it can look like the same product – but the content has been changed with no warning.
vickie´s last fabulous musings ..What did I do for exercise this week
High sodium content makes me so sad. It can ruin a perfectly good food. I feel that way about soup a lot of times. I’ve never returned a food item, though I should.
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Like you, Diane I am a consistent label reader! I’ve put a few items back
I bet that garden of yours produces foods with excellent nutritional label information!
Phases of my life (1) through about age 53 — ate everything. (2) 53 – 58 — bought things, realized they weren’t too good for me, ate some of it, then threw out the rest. (3) 58 – present — always read labels, rarely have bought anything bad for me. Gosh, it only took me 58 years to learn this!!
Marsial2010´s last fabulous musings ..Emergency Warning!
With high blood pressure, I need to start paying more attention to the sodium content in my foods. I’ve never taken food back to the store, but I frequently pick something off of the shelf and put it right back.
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I try to read labels when I pick up a new item at the store, but sometimes I don’t. And yes, I have had unpleasant “surprises” when I checked at home. I think I have always tried to modify it somehow (mix it with something healthier), but I think taking it back is a much better idea!
Andrea@WellnessNotes´s last fabulous musings ..CSA To The Rescue
Thats amazing…so much sodium!!
I bought this small pizza…small, side plate size ~ when hubby had his usual large size I wanted to put my small in the oven, when I saw it was over 385 calories I said NO ways, still in the freezer\!
Sodium is such a tough one! I started watching my sodium intake when I started this latest weight loss endeavor, and I was shocked by how easy it is to reach and exceed the daily recommended sodium intake.
Desert Agave´s last fabulous musings ..Unexpected Mourning
You know what they say about assume, Diane???
Yes, I have bought things & then not eat them. I am an avid label reader so my not eats are when I buy a treat & just feel it is not worth the calories & fat in it.
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If it makes it into my basket, I usually eat it at home. Unless it has fuzzy mold on it or something. And it’s not an expensive foreign cheese.
I admit sodium is the last thing on my radar right now, but I do catch it usually. If anything on the nutrition label is in the double digits it sends up a red flag. I check to see if it’s something good or bad. I think the treats I decide to buy are what I allow even if they are bad overall. Great post. Thanks for the reminder.
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My goodness what a crazy amount of sodium! The mind boggles. I must admit I was distracted by your mention “homemade tortilla chips”. Do you have the recipe on your site? I will have a dig around myself right now as I know it’s annoying when people don’t bother to look, hehe
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Yep. I don’t buy a lot of processed foods, but somehow (!) a Costco sized package of corn bread jumped in my cart a several months ago. I made it one time and it was great. I checked the nutrition box (afterwards, NOT a great idea) and saw that it had a huge amount of sugar. No wonder it was so good. I gave the rest of the box to my slender son and his slender family.
Jeez, that much sodium in RICE? Ridiculous. Good for you for returning it to the store… I do the same kind of thing. If for some reason an item like that finds its way to my kitchen, I usually give it away to someone else who will be able to use it. I know that I’m not going to use it, so someone else might as well be able to if they don’t care about things like that.
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I am trying to be more aware of sodium as well. Do you think it helps if you drink a few glasses extra of water to offset the sodium (not every day-just extra water if you have something with too much sodium)?
Oh, and FYI, I learned that when you return food to the store-they literally just throw it away. I hate being wasteful with food so I’d do what someone mentioned and donate it. Live and learn
I don’t remember returning anything but i do know that i’ve picked up products at the supermarket looked at the nutritional stats and the ingredients and decided to not have them.
I have done that. I tend to be the label critic now because of my health issues but before I would just grab and go and then have to take stuff back. Way better than eating it.
Whoa! I have never returned anything to the store, but have definitely thrown things out that turned out to be bad nutritionally.
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That’s good that you are returning it! I would just toss it
and that would be a total waste!
Beth @ fatbustermack´s last fabulous musings ..Tastes
Here’s where I’m guilty of loving my children more than myself. If I accidentally buy apple sauce (for example) that is sweetened, unlike the UNsweetened I always buy, I won’t feed it to them. It’ll just sit there in the pantry, I’ll give it away, or return it. If I buy something for ME that isn’t what I thought it was, I’d probably just eat it, and never buy it again…
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I’m not sure if I would’ve returned it or just eaten it and then never bought it again. However, that being said, I am rearranging a lot of what I cook and deciding I need to learn to make my own broths for recipes such as “yellow rice” so that I don’t have to use the high-sodium products.
Both my husband and I were amazed at how much sodium is in canned soups and items like you showed. Wow.
Thanks for talking about this today. I’m revamping and it’s taught me to look for sodium contents as well.
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I’ll admit, I don’t pay attention to sodium as much as I should. I buy different kinds of granola bars cause they look great, get them home and then decide they’re not worth it.
I have about six boxes sitting on my pantry as we speak.
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Oh yes I have done the same thing! Sometimes the nutritional information changes on things that I have bought for years. I always check now if something says, new, improved or something like that!
OMG – I had no idea! I’ve never had yellow rice – man who knew?
I’ve done that with recipe ingredients before. Like had to nix a whole recipe once I realized the stats!
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Just for future use, you can add tumeric to brown rice and get yellow rice with no sodium hit. The flavor is somewhat curry without the heat, and the yellow coloring is intense . Use care with it though, as it can permanently stain clothing, counter tops and make really interesting fingers for a while. Added bonus is that tumeric is a very potent antioxidant as well.
Diane´s last fabulous musings ..Beths Core Recipe Box Food is an important part of a balanced diet -Fran Leibowitz
Wow, 820 mg in one serving?? That’s crazy! I have found myself a few times recently forgetting to look for high fructose corn syrup in stuff, and then I take it home and am mad that I didn’t look more diligently at the label.
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Salt in foods can be nasty! I’ve never returned something I bought that I decided I won’t eat. I’ve done worse and given it to someone else
Diane, you set a great example for us by actually returning that product. I’ll usually eat it and say this time’s the last. But you’ve shown commitment.
I did some research, posted on my blog, about sodium in restaurant food, and I’ll say this – if you only were to use ONE piece of nutritional information to judge processed/restaurant food by, sodium may be even more revealing than calories.
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I accidentally bought regular lemonade instead of diet. And didn’t notice until I opened it. Oops. I drank a little of it, but it didn’t taste right…
We’ll be having some get togethers in the next month so I figure it should get drank then. If not, oh well, it was just a buck…
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