Success with sodium restrictions?

Stay away from Tomato sauces as they are extremely high in sodium. 3/4's of your daily sodium intake is in processed food and you need less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day. I would try to eat wheat noodles, no red sauces, low sodium cheese, and ask politely if they would cook this way. Hope this helps.

How do you deal with it in the US?

"I don't know how much sodium is added to tomato sauce in Europe" Just had a look at a run of the mill tube of double concetrate tomato puree (made in Italy and the only ingredient listed is tomato). We add it to fresh tomato to make a sauce. Salt content per 100 grams is 0.20g of which sodium is 0.08 grams.
Calorie count is 96 per 100 grams. Don't feel up to the math, it's been a long day!

Most aged cheese is extremely high in sodium. Mozzarella and ricotta might be okay, but nothing hard or aged. Tuscan bread is fine, a lot of people don't like it because it is salt free,but it will be fine for your husband. Salads, dressed yourself, should be okay, but watch out for additions like capers and olives and anchovies. Poached fish, no sauce, is another thing that is likely to be low sodium. Unfortunately, though, restaurants do not and likely cannot make every dish from scratch to order. Canned ingredients may already contain sodium, the chef may not realize the sodium content of meats and cheeses that they use, and sauces and marinated stuff may be prepared long in advance of the customer's order. You may want to consider self-catering if your husband's medical condition truly demands a highly restricted diet. Consult with his doctor about this and see if the diet can be complied with adequately in restaurants, or if it can be relaxed slightly temporarily. If not, renting an apartment with cooking facilities will put you in charge of diet.

Most good restos in Italy use fresh not processed ingredients so there should be no problem in asking them to hold the salt. Prepare a small card(s) wriiten in Italian requesting no salt in the food and explaining that it is for serious medical reasons. What you do need to watch is the bread. In general I find that (apart from in places like Umbria which has low/no salt bread for historical reasons) Italian bread is on the salty side.

Well I too am interested in how you manage eating out in your own town.. I also would NOT assume that Italian restaurants only use fresh ingredients,( lets not get all starry eyed about italian grandmothers in the kitchen picking fresh herbs etc. lol ) , as noted tomato sauce is a high sodium item( even fresh tomatoes are naturally high in sodium) , and many places DO use tinned tomatoes to make sauces. The veggies( yes, and you know some veggies are high sodium too, make a list and get it translated) and meats may be fresh, but sauces are a minefield,, even if cream based the sodium content can be altered by many "fresh" ingredients( like cheeses and stock/broth bases!) I don't think the average person really knows how much sodium is in most of our foods,, having had a friend who was supposed to keep his sodium level under 200 milligrams a day I know it was harder then one thinks,, and his health issue does not sound as severe as your husbands.. plus those limits are for the whole day,, it adds up. I guess you realize to avoid all salamis, processed meats, watch the anti pasta plates etc.. Fortunately there are always grilled fish and poultry options, and yes, do get a little card made up saying "no salt". I personally recommend packing a bit of the no salt spices ( like Mrs Dash) to brighten up some foods.

"Stay away from Tomato sauces as they are extremely high in sodium." Tomato sauce is not naturally high in sodium. It's only high because in this country processors add a lot of salt because they think it will make you buy more (until it kills you). I don't know how much sodium is added to tomato sauce in Europe. I only buy "no salt added" tomato sauce. An 8 oz can has 75 calories and 75 mg of sodium. (I think that - 1 mg per calorie - is pretty low for a processed food. According to this website, Hunt's tomato sauce, by comparison, with salt added, has 390 mg sodium for a 2 oz serving, over 1400 mg in an 8 oz can!)

Linda, thanks for the report. It's much easier than my flying to Europe just to read the label on tomato sauce. "Don't feel up to the math" We're constantly told how much simpler math is in the Metric system (it's really the French system; they invented it). 0.08 gm is 80 mg. Actually it's 78.6 (or is that 78,6?) mg; rounds to 80. Salt might not be the only source of sodium in tomatoes. What makes them acidic? Sodium citrate? Anyway, it's about 1 mg of sodium per 1 calorie, which ought to be the norm. 1500 mg (Heart Association) to 2500 mg (FDA) per 2000 calorie diet averages 1 mg/cal.

For something as important as this you cannot rely on reports of what is on tomato paste labels, which may or may not be the products used in the restaurant kitchen. Nor should you expect the kitchen to custom-make a special dish for you that does not contain salt-there are too many ways the instructions could get "lost in translation." So many classic Italian ingredients are loaded with saltprosciutto, pancetta, braseola, Parmagiano and other hard cheeses, olives, capers, even pesto. Your husband is going to have to learn to choose dishes that would normally be made without any of these ingredients. That pretty much eliminated most pasta, pizzas, and crostini. No risotto either, as that is made with stock which is likely salted. A pasta simply sauced with garlic and olive oil would be OK if you can find it, but for the most part you will have to choose simple grilled meats, fish, and vegatables, all without sauce, and specify "no salt". There are probably some salads that would work too-maybe a Caprese if you can ensure that the mozzarella has little or no salt. The good news is he can probably have lots of gelato!

Thanks, everyone! The tips on the breads is especially helpful! I had no idea that Tuscan bread has no salt. We have a hard time eating out here. (Cooking at home isn't bad--we're good cooks, so we manage just ifne. But we miss eating out!). He has fish, chicken, or steak grilled plain without sauces. Baked potatoes and cole slaw are usually fine. He also eats as much fresh foods as possible. The tricky part is knowing if places use canned products, chicken base, olives, cheeses, salted butter, etc. I'm thinking he will have to stick to garlic, oil, and lemon sauces on pasta. Making up cards is a good idea.
We may have to rent a villa and do all our cooking....

Watch out for pasta. It's cooked in salted water, and many restaurants partly cook their pasta in bulk and then 'refresh' the pasta by finishing it when a customer orders the dish. (And I know that restaurants in the US keep a huge vat of simmering salted water on the go
for pasta cooking; I can't imagine that an Italian restaurant would be inclined to boil up a big pot of unsalted water just for one diner.) The good news is that unsalted butter is very available in Europe, and because it is slightly cultured it is delicious in comparison with unsalted butter typically sold in the US. But, sadly, fresh mozzarella is out; it does have a lot less sodium than hard cheeses, but it still packs a sodium wallop. You might want to check sodium levels for foods online before you go, just to make sure you understand what you are getting. I suspect that the only way you can keep to an ultra low sodium diet is by cooking yourself.