How to reduce sodium in canned foods

[Georgiana]

I knew 'washing' is an option, but I never knew how the numbers changed. So I googled a bit today, and here is what I have found.

A 3-minute rinse of tuna and cottage cheese resulted in sodium reductions of 80% and 63%, respectively, with no significant effect on iron content. Calcium was reduced by approximately 50%. Although rinsing had a minimal effect on the sodium in canned beans, replacing the canning brine with water before heating lowered salt content by 33%.

You can find the article here (only on JSTOR, because the original article is not available online). It is under "Sodium Washout" (there are more articles on the page).

I find the values are quite amazing, especially for canned fish. In fact, I will have sardines today and that is the reason I searched for this in the first place.

[Laurenfra]

Sounds good I always wash canned vegis bit how in the world would you wash cottage cheese?

[Georgiana]

My grandma washes cottage cheese by putting it in a cheesecloth bag and immersing it into water at 30-35 deg Celsius. Then she just raises and lowers the bag for a few minutes.

[TheDogAteMyName]

You could purchase canned veggies without salt added. I do this

[cherribom1]

What about washing out canned foods that have sugar added? Does that wash out the sugar as well?

[Georgiana]

Well, I am not sure about this and couldn't find anything on the internet. But

• sugar dissolves more difficult in water (compared to salt), so
  • the food might not absorb so much sugar as salt in the same amount of time
  • you might need to rinse the food for a longer time to get rid of the same sugar percentage as salt
• the salt content in canned vegetables could only be decreased by 33% after cooking them in clear water, so even if you manage to reduce the sugar by this percentage, you will still be left with 67% (!) of the sugar

For cottage cheese and fish I guess it doesn't matter since they normally don't have added sugar (at least they don't in Germany).