"Convenient" can be code for belly bloat Check the labels on your favorite packaged eats, such as soups and frozen dinners, and you'll be shocked at how much salt is in there. Case in point: One package of ramen noodles has 1,820 milligrams of sodium--that's 80 percent of what should be your daily limit of 2,300 mg. (On average, we consume almost 50 percent more than that each day.) Aside from making your jeans "shrink" a size overnight (thanks, water weight!), high-salt diets can be bad for your stomach and heart. Avoid OD'ing by buying snacks with less than 250 mg of sodium per serving and prepackaged meals with less than 600 mg.
Making some packaged food taste good and getting you to buy it can involve a lot of tinkering and some shifty science. The result isn't always pretty. We expose. by Dina Roth Port