The Bagel Dilemma

What could be more simple than a bagel? It would appear to have simple ingredients like flour and water and, when flavored, ingredients like cinnamon, raisins, sesame seeds, onion, and garlic. All seem fairly wholesome. What could be a better snack or source of energy when a meal is several hours away or an exercise session is planned within 2-4 hours?

Just to check on the ingredients in fresh bagels available to me, I did a web search on their ingredients, and found the following counts for plain bagels:

• Stop and Shop: calories 290, sodium 520 mg, sugars 4 mg
• Finagle a Bagel: calories 290, sodium 410 mg, sugars 8 mg
• Dunkin Donuts calories 320, sodium 660 mg, sugars 6 mg
• Bruegger’s: calories 300, sodium 530 mg, sugars 7 mg
• Starbucks: calories 300, sodium 460 mg, sugars 8 mg

I have nothing against the calories. We all need them to survive. And when carbo loading for athletic activity, healthy calories are what we’re looking for. It’s the sodium that’s the problem. Based on average caloric intake and recommended sodium limits, we should be taking in very roughly about one milligram of sodium per calorie consumed. That means that any food containing significantly more milligrams of sodium than calories should be considered a high-sodium food. Thus, all of the bagels listed above are high in sodium. If a plain bagel can’t be low to moderate in sodium, what can? Anything you put on top of the bagel is likely to be high in sodium as well. One slice of cheese contains about 300 mg, 2 slices of cold-cuts have 600-800 mg. But the real dilemma is, if even a plain bagel is high in sodium, how can we possibly keep our sodium levels under control?

The best we can do is to carry our own snacks and energy foods that have healthy ingredients and low to moderate sodium levels. That means either using fresh fruits or buying products whose ingredient labels pass muster. And when we prepare dinner, we can use as many fresh ingredients as possible and use processed products like sauces and salad dressings that have reasonable sodium levels listed on their labels. Fruit juices are not recommended as a major energy source because of their high sugar content. The same goes for chocolate milk, which has recently been touted as a good recovery drink. Skim or 1% milk isn’t a bad alternative if one prefers a liquid rather than solid snack. A glass of 1% milk contains 102 calories, 107 mg of sodium, and 13 mg of natural sugars.

The Difficulty of Eating Lunch Without Getting Socked by Sodium

Recommendations for daily sodium intake have been made by various health organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. They generally agree on a range of 1,500 to 2,300 mg/day for normal people but lower limits for those with congestive heart failure, liver cirrhosis, or kidney disease. One teaspoon of salt contains 2,300 gm of sodium.

Unfortunately, without ever picking up a salt shaker, it is very difficult to keep within the recommended sodium limits range if one either eats in restaurants or uses processed foods at home.

While people frequently eat dinner at home, and thus may control the amount of sodium they take in by using fresh ingredients, many of us find it convenient to eat lunch in a fast-food or table-served restaurant. Some examples from popular restaurants below show how difficult it is to find a restaurant meal that does not contain excess sodium.

McDonald's

• Big Mac®: 1040 mg
• Premium Grilled Chicken Ranch BLT Sandwich: 1190 mg
• Premium Bacon Ranch Salad with Grilled Chicken: 1010 mg

 Burger King

• Whopper®with cheese: 1450 mg
• Angus Steak Burger®: 1260 mg
• TenderGrill™ Chicken: 1180 mgs
• BK Big Fish®: 1450 mgs

Wendy's

• Double w/Everything and Cheese: 1440 mg
• Homestyle Chicken Fillet Sandwich: 1120 mg

Dunkin’ Donuts

• Egg and cheese on a bagel: 1160 mg
• Bagel and cream cheese: 910 mg

Panera Bread

• Chipotle chicken sandwich on artisan French: 2370 mg
• Cuban chicken Panini: 1900 mg
• Turkey artichoke Panini on focaccia: 2340 mg

Pizza Hut

• Half of a 12” medium cheese pan pizza: 2120 mg
• 2 slices of large 14” meat lover’s pan pizza: 2360 mg

Chipotle

• Chicken burrito in 13” tortilla with rice, black beans, tomato salsa, guacamole and lettuce: 2100 mg
• Steak burrito in 13” tortilla with rice, red beans, tomato salsa, cheese, guacamole and lettuce: 2160 mg

Bottom Line
These amounts of sodium are way over the top. And don’t think that table-served restaurants are any better. They vary widely as to the amount of salt added to their food, but most use a lot of salt. Why? Because most people like the taste. It’s obvious that any large restaurant chain would do extensive taste tests to see what people like best. So high salt foods must be what people prefer. Salt levels in food are thus market-driven. However, it is difficult to tell whether we have just gotten used to high-salt foods because of their prevalence or whether we have some instinctive salt craving that dates back to hunting and gathering days, when salt in the diet was difficult to obtain. Whatever the case, medical authorities widely agree that we are getting too much of it. Pending possible legislation to limit the sodium count in foods, the best we can do is to prepare our own food from fresh ingredients as much as possible and to consult nutritional information at restaurants or on their web sites to make selections without excessive sodium content, however difficult that is. It would also be helpful if large companies received e-mail or other messages from consumers asking to reduce the sodium content in their foods.