Healthy Food Choices: Canned Meats

Well packaged canned meats can be a good source of protein and help fight against heart disease. Learn some more tips on choosing canned meats in this video.

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Watch for high sodium content
Prefer water packed
May help prevent heart disease

About this Author

Alice Merritt is currently the Campus Dietitian at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She has a masters degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in public health with a concentration on nutrition. Alice has worked as a registered dietician for four years, and believes that helping people reach their nutritional goals will lead to a long and healthy life.

ALICE MERRITT: Now I am going to talk to you about canned meats. Canned meats actually can be a very good source of protein but oftentimes they are very highly processed and can have high sodium content. Healthy choices for canned meats are things like tuna and salmon. But you want to make sure that you look for them packaged in water rather than packaged in oil because the oil adds excess calories and fat. Other things that can be good for canned meats are canned--low fat chicken and also some seafoods can be canned, like clams. We have here salmon. They are excellent sources because they have a long shelf life and you can pull them out anytime you need protein sources. Important things to remember about canned meats, they tend to be very high in sodium so you want to make sure you read the labels very well. Canned tuna and salmon can also be excellent sources on omega 3 fatty acid which have been shown to help reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. So remember to look for your leaner canned meat such as tuna, salmon and chicken. These are good things to think of when buying canned meats.

Healthy Food Choices: Canned Meats Video

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