I love Mexican food in all forms and the whole low sodium diet has definitely made me re-evaluate my recipes. While I can play with flavors for my favorite enchilada/fajita or taco recipe, I have not yet resorted to home made tortillas (after all we do aim for quick and easy too!).
On my recent trip to the grocery store, I decided to look at all my tortilla options to see what would be the best way to cut down unnecessary sodium in a Mexican inspired meal.
Here’s what I found!
Flour Tortillas
Not sure why but all the flour tortillas I found had a lot of sodium in them (as high as 410 mg of sodium per tortilla!) Do you have any idea how many tortillas I can eat to mop up the crazy yummy flavors?! It’s shocking!
The only exception I found was the La Banderita Low Sodium Flour Tortillas (available at amazon.com) coming in at 85 mg of sodium per tortilla – which while still high, is acceptable if you only want a couple of enchiladas!
Corn Tortillas
Clearly, corn tortillas are way lower in sodium than flour tortillas. You can go as low as 8 mg of sodium per corn tortilla!
The sodium difference is crazy! Yes, they do taste different but I find that if you don’t love it already, it will definitely grow on you very quickly.
Specialty Tortillas
Tortillas that target the health market are a whole different breed! Carb balance, plant powered protein, gluten free are all options on the shelf but once you dig in you will realize that the sodium levels are through the roof!
One would expect that if flour is high sodium and corn is not, then the combination of corn and flour tortillas should fall into some sort of a happy medium in taste as well as sodium level. Not so! For example the one I found from Chi Chi’s had 310mg of sodium per tortilla!
Crunchy Shells
Who does not like a good crunch in their meal? But again, while not the worst offender, it is not exactly a healthy option.
Size Matters!
Okay, so I will admit that it’s not fair to compare a small corn tortilla to a larger, more substantial flour tortilla. However when you consider that you are really using the tortilla as a vehicle to carry your fajita or
Taco fillings, wouldn’t you rather have many many smaller tortillas than just one that’s larger? Something to think about!