If you’re on a low-salt diet as I am, you need to scrutinize labels of every product you buy to eat or cook with, no matter how minor it seems. Even something as innocent sounding as breadcrumbs are loaded with salt.
I use breadcrumbs as filler for my lean turkey meatloafs. I also use egg whites to bind them together into the loaf, avoiding using whole eggs. It hadn’t occurred to me to read the salt content of the breadcrumbs until a coworker mentioned that she enjoyed panko breadcrumbs better than regular ones.
I saw some on my next shopping trip and compared labels for the panko vs. the Italian seasoned breadcrumbs I was buying. Both were store brand products.
The difference is dramatic, 75 mgs of sodium in a panko serving compared with 430 mgs in the Italian breadcrumbs. And it gets worse. A serving of panko is half a cup, a serving of the other breadcrumbs is only one-quarter of a cup, meaning for a true comparison, that 430 should be doubled to 860! I use a cup of breadcrumbs in a two-pound loaf, so I was putting in 1,720 mgs of salt in the breadcrumbs. I was stunned.
Read every label of every ingredient in your home.
John
The No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal 