How to Tackle with Sodium Intake in the Healthy Japanese Meal

Posted on Jan 20, 2015 in Hiroko's Blog

Here is how we can tackle with sodium intake in the healthy Japanese meal.

  • Learn to cook Japanese meals in our kitchen, so that we know how much salt (in the form of shoyu and miso as well) is used in the preparations. Japanese restaurants in America (maybe this is a ubiquitous problem in any restaurants) usually flavor the dishes with more shoyu, miso and sugar, because the diners, including us, are expecting punching flavor from the first bite of the dish. One note to your favorite miso marinated black cod: I cannot stand with the dish at many restaurants here in America. Too much sugar in the marinade makes the fish tastes like candy.
  • miso soup breast cancerLearn to use quality ingredients. Shoyu and miso are salty, but they are also packed with umami, good flavor. Choose the quality ingredients, which are produced through real, lengthy fermentation process (not computerized factory operation). Lengthy fermentation process produces the true ‘umami’, and most importantly, nutrients in the products. Quality shoyu and miso flavor our dishes properly with minimum volume, keeping the sodium level low. On the other hand poorly made ingredients, which may have some chemical additives, make our dish just salty.
  • yugohanLearn to eat balanced. Have one soup, one protein, one carbohydrate, one or two vegetable dishes. Do you like miso soup? Keep it just as one cup serving for a meal. If we consume more soup we are taking too much sodium. Always stay on the traditional, Japanese portion size. Including a bowl of plain cooked rice in the meal, either polished white rice or whole grain rice, is important. Rice refreshes our palate after a bite or so of grilled fish, soup or whichever you are eating. It also counterbalances the sodium in other dishes.tsukemonodaikon
  • udon chicken (2)Leave the noodle soup in your bowl. The soup of hot bowl of soba, udon and ramen noodles are delicious. But, do not drink it all in the bowl. You may sip some of the soup from the bowl or using spoon while enjoying the noodle bowl, but leave 80 percent of the soup in the bowl. You will stop telling me that you become thirsty after eating a bowl of soba, udon or ramen noodle hot bowls.
  • Use the dipping shoyu at sushi restaurant with consciousness. Many of my American friends complain that sushi dinner makes their hands puff up. “Too much sodium in sushi dining”. The problem is that they are using too much shoyu with each bite of sushi. Sushi rice is already flavored with salt. The fish placed on top of the rice ball or a piece of inside-out roll made with rich sauce needs just a little touch of shoyu.