chrisx. If you're eating a variety of foods, you can "eat liberally" of meats. There is no limit on meat, as long as it's not all you eat. You must eat foods in all categories.

Processed meats like ham, deli meats and hotdogs have a lot of salt, but fresh meats shouldn't. There should be no salt added to fresh meats.

If you're using a program like fitday and you're going by the sodium counts they give, check the link for the item. A lot assume salt is added during cooking, so it's in the count. If you don't add salt, there's not as much. This is one reason I always choose raw eggs when I'm selecting foods. All the others have salt added! Do read your labels tho! Some stores routinely sell chicken and other items that are in a "solution" to keep them "fresh". Those frequently contain salt, and sometimes carbs too!

Too much salt can cause fluid retention, but with healthy kidneys it shouldn't be a major issue....if you retain, just cut salt for a few days and you should loose it quickly.

I've heard some talk in the medical comminuty that there are questions to just how big a role salt plays in hypertension when there is no congestive heart failure (CHF) going along with it (as in primary HTN, of no known cause). Primary HTN, which is what MOST people have, has no known cause. If you are overweight, have a high salt intake, smoke, or have other "unhealthy" habits, you will be told to loose weight, cut salt, etc and will likely see a reduction in BP. But you will also likely still require medication.

Because they DO see a reduction with salt restriction and weight loss, docs continue to prescribe it. But the reduction alone is often not enough to prevent eventual use of medications.

For people with HTN due to other diseases (secondary HTN) there may or may not be salt restrictions, depending on the underlying cause.

I know a lot of patients who have been told by their docs to "cut down on salt if they can, but don't worry about it". Others simply ban the salt-shaker!