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Wednesday made the point that most of your daily sodium is in packaged food, and most of your potassium is missing. This is the version you can screenshot before Saturday.
Three lists, one weekend.
1. Six low-sodium swaps
The pantry items driving the highest sodium loads. Same pattern, cleaner number.
Bread. Ask your local bakery how much salt they use and pick the lowest loaf they make. Slow-fermented sourdough or rye can run under 100 mg per slice. At a supermarket, look at the nutritional label and try and find something below 100 mg per slice. Most commercial sliced bread lands around 150 to 180 mg per slice. Batch-bake and freeze if you already bake.
Canned soup. Skip most cans, or scan the label. Homemade wins. Batch a big pot on Sunday, freeze in portions, reheat through the week. If you are buying, Amy's Light in Sodium or Health Valley No Salt Added run 70 to 500 mg per can vs 700 to 900 in the regular versions. Both stocked at Whole Foods and most large supermarkets.
Deli meat. Skip the packaged pre-sliced entirely. Cook a whole chicken or turkey breast on Sunday and slice cold for the week. The butcher's counter or the store deli's fresh-slice option beats anything in a plastic clamshell. Processed deli meats carry nitrates and preservatives that make them a hard no here, sodium aside.
Pasta sauce. Homemade takes 20 minutes with a can of San Marzano tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, salt, and basil. Batch and freeze. If you are buying, Rao's Sensitive Marinara is the lowest-sodium mainstream jar. Widely stocked.
Frozen meal. The category exists for the days you would otherwise order takeout. Amy's Light in Sodium line (Mexican Casserole, Split Pea Bowl, Vegetable Lasagna) runs 370 mg vs 780 mg in the regular versions. Whole Foods and most major grocery chains carry them.
Cheese. Cut cheese from a block rather than from a plastic wrapper. Cabot, Kerrygold, or Tillamook block cheddar runs around 180 mg per ounce. Kraft Singles are 330 mg per slice with added stabilisers.
2. Six potassium-forward foods to add
Two servings a day of any two closes most of the potassium gap for most adults.
Frozen spinach. Any organic frozen spinach: Whole Foods 365, Cascadian Farm, or the store organic brand. Roughly 420 mg potassium per cup cooked. Cheaper than fresh, more concentrated.
Reduced-sodium beans. Look for “no salt added” or “reduced sodium” on the label. Bush's Best Reduced Sodium is the widely stocked mainstream pick at 140 mg sodium and 470 mg potassium per half cup. Even better: dry beans from bulk, soaked and cooked in a big batch on Sunday.
Plain Greek yogurt. Any full-fat or 2% plain Greek yogurt: Fage, Chobani, Wallaby, or store brand. 260 mg potassium per serving plus 15 to 20 grams of protein.
Wild salmon. Fresh, frozen, or canned. 400 plus mg potassium per serving, plus the omega-3s you cannot get from a supplement quite as cleanly. Look for “wild caught” on the label. “Atlantic” usually means farmed.
Avocado. Roughly 485 mg potassium per Hass avocado. One a day is not overkill.
Sweet potato. Roughly 540 mg potassium per medium. Baked in bulk on Sunday is the highest ratio of potassium to effort in the aisle.
Skip the banana as the potassium symbol. It is 420 mg, respectable but nowhere near the top of the list.
3. Two things worth keeping in the pantry
One iodized salt in rotation. Morton Iodized in a small backup jar alongside whatever pink or Celtic or sea salt you already use for cooking. That is the whole intervention.
One magnesium supplement. A 2016 meta-analysis by Zhang and colleagues in Hypertension of 34 randomized trials and 2,028 participants found magnesium at a median 368 mg per day lowered SBP by 2 mmHg and DBP by 1.78 mmHg. Small on its own, meaningful stacked on the four levers.
Look for magnesium glycinate or bisglycinate on the label (the forms that absorb best without GI upset). Doctor's Best and Thorne are two clean, widely available brands. 200 mg elemental at night is the standard starting point.
Your weekend action
Screenshot the swaps list before Saturday. Rebuild one shelf of the pantry with the lower-sodium version of the six items you already buy. Add two of the six potassium foods to the same shop.
You will spend the same at the till. Your BP has a chance to move by 5 to 10 mmHg over the next 12 weeks without touching a medication.
Everything sequenced. If you want the four-lever protocol phased for your quiz responses, the Personalised Healthspan Report has the 12-week plan with the shopping list built in.
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