Deli Meat = Absurd salt %

Hi. I'm trying to cut back on my salt (I have not cut it out of my diet because I know our body needs a little)

 

I love deli meat. It makes sandwich-making so much easier.

After I took a bite out of of the oscar meyer deli meat, I could only taste the saltiness of it. I looked at the nutritional label and it said, like, 2 slices already had almost a quarter of your RDA of sodium. AH!

That's too much if you ask me.

 

Are there any alternatives? If I go to the deli counter in my grocery store and ask to have fresh, will there still be too much salt?

 

I looked on the counter and saw some already packaged deli meat from the grocery store and it also contained crazy amounts of salt.

 

So will there always be crazy amounts of salt in my meat wherever I go? 

if you're buying packaged, processed meats, then yes. 

you can get sliced roast beef from the deli counter, but it will be "seasoned" in some way.  the best alternative is to cook your own.  i love dark chicken meat (boneless, skinless thighs are great), grilled and then shredded in wraps, salads, and sandwiches.

yeah, make your own.  You can usually buy turkey breasts or loins that are very simple to roast and slice for sandwiches.  The meat will also freeze pretty well.

On top of the salt issue processed deli meats are being linked to all sorts of diseases. You will be a lot better off overall if you drop them from your routine. 

Yeah, and they are high in cholesterol too. Try to avoid it completely.

i recently discovered the same thing. i was practically living on turkey deli sandwiches for lunch. then as i started to log foods, i was noticing that my sodium count was always so high! so i did a little investigating, and lo and behold, the culprit was my precious turkey deli meat.

so, now i have switched to canned turkey that i stumbled across at Costco a couple weeks ago. it's not the same, but its an alternative. there's still sodium, but not nearly as much. i know it would be even better to buy turkey breasts and cook them myself - but i honestly just don't have the time or patience to deal with that. so, canned turkey and canned tuna are my staples for lunch (or the occassional leftovers, and a side salad or applesauce).

Mel

it takes about one hour to make a turkey breast.  You couldn't spare one hour sometime on the weekend to prepare one for the week's sandwiches?

I eat packaged lunch meat almost every day and yes it accounts for a lot of my daily sodium intake but it doesn't put me over 2500 mg.