Why So Salty?

Hey everyone, it's Karen here and I'm salty because my ground pork was salty. Let me explain...

This week's recipe for Banh Mi Style Pork Tacos is a family favorite in my house. It had been a while since I last prepared it, so I brought it back into the dinner rotation a couple weeks ago. I typically order my groceries from Walmart and the only ground pork they usually sell is Smithfield brand. It works fine for me, but it hasn't been in stock lately. I've would have used ground pork from Whole Foods, but it was easier to dart into Kroger to grab some ground pork this time around. 

I made the tacos and everyone was excited to dig in! But after a couple minutes, we could all tell something wasn't right. There was a really strong salty flavor that overwhelmed the whole taco. What a disappointment :( Of course I immediately started trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Did I use too much teriyaki glaze? Did I add too much salt to one of the condiments? Then I decided to pull the pork package out of the trash. And I was shocked at what I saw...

730 mg of sodium per 4 oz. serving?!?! That's about 1/3 of your sodium intake of the day. I truly was shocked, and trust me, it gets harder and harder to shock this seasoned dietitian! So then I wondered how different this was than the Smithfield brand I usually get from Walmart. The Smithfield brand has 400 mg per 4 oz. serving, so it guess it made sense as to why it tasted much saltier. And then I looked up the Whole Foods ground pork and saw that is had only 65 mg of sodium per serving. I think I'll try to stick with that one as much as I can. And guess what? The Kroger brand and Whole Foods brand regular prices for one pound of ground pork are exactly the same (Smithfield is a little cheaper). 

So, what did we learn from all this, other than Karen has little tolerance for meals that go wrong? Read the labels and make no assumptions. And most importantly, show yourself some grace the next time you get duped by a food, knowing it happens to dietitians too!