Amy's Entrees so high in sodium!

  • I love Amy's entrees - so tasty and convenient - but I have one question....if the ingredients are as natural as they seem, why are the meals so blasted high in sodium? I'm having a Ravioli bowl for lunch and the sodium is 680mg or 28% of recommended daily value!
  • I think the salt is used to preserve it. I hate this too but they're so good. I only eat them occasionally for this reason.
  • That makes sense but I still don't like it! I know there are low sodium options but the stores I frequent don't carry them. I've cut back on eating them for lunch because I'm fairly certain it was stalling my weightloss.
  • I hadn't really paid attention. Thanks for the heads up.
  • They have a lot of the light in sodium meals available now they are a lot lower. If you go to the Amys website it tells about them.
  • I know...I just can't find them! Maybe I'll try to check out some other stores around me because these are so perfect for lunch.
  • I made a chicken dish the other night and used a packet of spices. The sodium was 4500 to serve enough chicken for five people! OMG!!!!

    I will NOT be buying that again.

    Most processed items are loaded. It's just a fact. I guess it's used for preservation.
  • Do you track the rest of your sodium intake for the day? Are they making you go over your allotted amount? If lunch is 1/3 of your meals for the day, then the fact that they contain 1/3 of sodium for the day isn't particularly alarming unless you are eating them with every meal.
  • I love the Amy's too! I agree with Seagirl's post, and I also learned something that I didn't know, from my doctor. He showed me some studies that are linking an increase in hypothyroidism with the move away from salt - both for blood pressure reasons AND because the new gourmet sea salts are hot right now. Good ol' Morton's was iodized, and many of us have cut salt - which was a serious source of supplemental iodine! Mind you, we did have some discussion about the increased awareness of thyroid issues, and about the other things that stymie thyroid output, but he also did point out that certain levels of sodium are necessary for the body's function and not to try to avoid all of it. His recommendation to me was not to go much below 1000mg. Sodium does make me retain water ... but if I drink enough water, it's not an issue. Just something to toss into the mix!
  • I learned that for every 1000mgs of sodium you take on in a day 1 lbs stays hiding on you somewhere..... be it a cause of water retention or what not. Cut that sodium and should help you some.
    Also to help rid your body of the sodium water with some lemon wedges or lemon juice drops helps you pee out the sodium fast. thus your body not holding onto it. Same with peppermint tea.
  • I just had their light-in-sodium mattar paneer yesterday for lunch. And yeah, I've heard too that goiters (swollen glands in the neck as a result of hypothyroidism) may be making a comeback as more cooks ditch Morton's iodized when-it-rains-it-pours in favor of fancy noniodized salts
  • You might want to try the Kashi entrees. Most of the ones that I've looked at have significantly less sodium than their frozen counterparts. This doesn't relate to the frozen meal dilemma, but I buy their Island Vanilla Shredded Wheat cereal because it has 0mg of sodium and only 7g of sugar per serving. I used to love frosted mini wheats until I saw the sodium and sugar amounts, so the Kashi is a great substitute for me.