Let’s be clear – there’s nothing wrong with salt.  Our bodies need sodium to regulate the fluids in the circulatory system and to help neurons fire. Too little sodium can cause weakness, muscle cramps, vomiting, confusion and in extreme cases lead to coma.  Too much sodium can lead to high blood pressure and increase your risk for heart disease, cardiac arrest, and stroke.

Since most of the problem originates with processed food, the CDC is asking food manufacturers to gradually reduce the sodium in their products, with the aim of hitting 3000 mg/day in the next 5 years.  The idea is to wean us off the salty flavor so that we don’t notice. In other words, small changes can make a big difference in the long run.

You might be surprised to learn that out of all our processed foods, breads and rolls have the highest amount of sodium because food manufacturers use baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to help breads rise.  It’s not necessary, but it’s an easy and cheap method to get extra light bread.

Soups and broths are fifth on the list of sodium offenders. In addition to regular salt, many high-sodium “natural flavorings” and additives are used to boost flavor, as well as to balance and enhance other flavors.  Salt is also used as a preservative for those shelf-stable boxes of stocks and broths.

Kitchen Basics is a solid brand you’d find on the shelves of broths, stocks and soups. Until recently, they only made stock, but because of the demand, they are now making bone broth (as does every other brand, including Campbells).

Here’s the ingredients for Kitchen Basics chicken stock and beef stock:

Not too bad. At least you can pronounce everything.  It is a little weird to have sugar in stock, but you’d be surprised how many processed foods have sugar.

Salt is the second ingredient in the beef stock and third for chicken stock.  But lots of sodium is hidden in the other ingredients on the list.

Weird that stock is an ingredient on the carton of stock!  We have no idea what went into the stock they used to make stock, do we?  It is most likely NOT liquid from simmering bones.

Check out the list of ingredients from one type of natural meat flavor.  Lots of sodium in there.

Water, Soy Sauce (hydrolyzed soy protein, dextrose, maltodextrin, salt), autolyzed yeast extract, soybean oil, thiamine hydrochloride, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate and natural flavors), glycerin I+G (disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate), Citric Acid and Natural Flavors.

I can guarantee that the vegetable stock Kitchen Basics uses is chock full of sodium, from salt and other sources.  One clue is that Kitchen Basics Vegetable Stock on the grocery shelf has 470 mg of sodium per serving.  Yikes!

Concentrated vegetable juice must have lots of sodium in order to be sold as a shelf stable ingredient.  Vegetable powders often contain anti-caking agents, many of which are sodium-based.  Some vegetable powders also have “natural flavor” – and we know what that can mean.

Given these ingredients, it’s not a shocker to see that the sodium content is off the charts:

You might be wondering if the high sodium content is because these products are “stocks” and not “bone broths.”  Kitchen Basics does now make a line of bone broths.

Let’s look at the ingredients:

Seems a lot better, doesn’t it? 

In addition to salt, there’s one more potential source of sodium: beef broth/chicken broth. One giant step in the right direction is that the broth used includes bones.

But, there’s not a complete list of ingredients for the broth, which could mean trouble.

Take a look at the sodium content for the bone broths. Not really much better than stocks, is it? It's all hiding inside the ingredient listed as "broth." Kinda sneaky of them, eh?

The easiest way to get your daily sodium down to 2300 mg is to eat foods that don’t have added salt or ingredients with high sodium content.

Here’s the list of ingredients for Mountain Meadow Bone Broth.

How much sodium do you think is in it? Zero, Zilch, Nada, Nothin’

I usually add a mixture of salt, pepper and garlic powder to Mountain Meadow Bone Broth if I’m going to sip it, and I definitely add salt to dishes I cook with it.

As I said, nothing actually wrong with salt.

But – here’s the thing – With no sources of extra sodium in Mountain Meadow, you get to control the amount of sodium you use and not captive to the food industry’s messed-up idea of the right amount of sodium.