A Surprising Number of Foods Contain Large Amounts of Salt

Consumer Reports looked at a wide range of foods and discovered than many of them contain a surprising amount of salt.

For instance, Twizzlers. The Black Licorice Twists variety contains 200 milligrams per four-piece serving. Kellogg's Raisin Bran cereal contains 350 milligrams per cup, while Post's version of the cereal contains 350.

The chocolate variety of Jell-O Instant Pudding & Pie Filling Mix contains 420 milligrams.

All of those foods have more salt than a bag of Ruffles Original Potato Chips, which contains 160 milligrams per serving. But the lower-fat baked version of the chips contains 200 milligrams. Consumer Reports found that foods advertised as "low fat" often have more salt in them, mainly to make up for the loss of flavor that comes with removing fat.

One good thing: the magazine found that the low-salt claims of most foods are accurate. In one of the 37 such claims it examined, however, the salt content was much higher than advertised: Enrico's Traditional Pasta Sauce says "No Salt Added" on the label and listed the sodium content at 25 milligrams. But Consumer Reports ran tests and found that one sample contained 160 milligrams and another had 250.

"Accurate labeling is the good news," the magazine said. "The bad news is that sodium lurks in foods that you'd never think to check."