No baloney: sandwich stuffers that go beyond low-fat

If you've got three minutes to pack lunch, nothing's quicker than ham on rye, roast beef on a roll, or turkey on whole wheat.

And you can easily dodge the saturated fat that ordinary bologna or salami can slide into your sandwich. Any well-stocked meat aisle is crammed with packages sporting claims like "97% fat-free," "lean," and "light."

The catch: most lunch meats are saturated with salt. A two-ounce serving packs anywhere from 500 to 1,000 milligrams of sodium. And that doesn't include the sodium in the bread, mustard, mayo, pickle, etc. With experts now recommending no more than 1,500 mg of sodium a day, cold cuts can put a major dent in your daily quota.

Our chart ignores most meats with more than 480 mg of sodium in two ounces. (That's usually just two slices. Many restaurants stuff five ounces into their sandwiches.)

That meant we snubbed just about every cold cut made by heavyweights like Oscar Mayer and Louis Rich, not to mention Butterball, Hormel, Carl Buddig, Hillshire Farm, Gwaltney, Dak, Plumrose, and Land O' Frost.

While dozens of their lunch meats met our cut-off for saturated fat (no more than two grams in two ounces), few kept sodium low enough to earn a Best Bite (300 mg) or Honorable Mention (480 mg).

What's a shopper to do?

To keep your blood pressure from rising, look for meats that are labeled "healthy" or that carry either the American Heart Association's "heart check" or a government-approved health claim about heart disease. But to really slash the sodium, look for products that are uncured or nitrite-free (the most common preservative is sodium nitrite).

The good news: your taste buds won't notice the missing salt. But you still need to stay on your toes to keep your arteries in good shape. Here are some things to look for ... and to avoid.

FIND THE CATCH

"While many factors affect heart disease, a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of this disease," says the small print on some Dietz & Watson packages.

It's not hard to tell which words reach a label via Madison Avenue and which are eloquently crafted by the federal government.

If you have a magnifying glass handy, you'll find the same words on most Healthy Choice cold cuts and Celebrity Healthy Hams. Apparently, both companies would rather highlight the (larger) American Heart Association's logo than the government's catchy prose. Dietz & Watson has its own heart symbol ("dedicated to your healthier lifestyle"), which may mean that it didn't want to pay the Heart Association's fees.

Any individual food that carries a government-approved heart-disease claim can't have more than one gram of saturated fat and 480 mg of sodium. It also has to contain at least 10 percent of a day's worth of protein, fiber, vitamins A or C, calcium, or iron. But there's a catch.

Dietz & Watson, for example, uses a one-ounce serving for many of its lunch meats. That's legal, but sneaky. Consumers who eat a more-realistic two ounces of Dietz's Tavern or Cooked Ham, for example, will get 580 mg of sodium, despite the heart-disease claim. It just goes to show: no matter how tightly the rules are written, you still have to read the fine print.

CARB SCARE

"South Beach Diet Recommended," announces the front of Oscar Mayer's Dell Style Thin Smoked Ham. With nary a carb and just 50 calories and 1/2 gram of saturated fat, who could argue?

Of course, you'd be hard-pressed to find a ham that has more than one or two grams of carbohydrates. And several brands--like Celebrity Healthy Ham and Dietz & Watson Black Forest Deep Smoked Ham--match Oscar's zero carbs. The difference: Oscar will cost you 720 mg of sodium--roughly twice as much as Celebrity (360 mg) or Dietz (400 mg).

ONE RINGY DINGY

Companies can't slap the word "healthy" on any old food. A serving has to be low in saturated fat (no more than one gram), it can't exceed 480 mg of sodium, and it has to supply at least 10 percent of a day's worth of protein, fiber, vitamins A or C, calcium, or iron.

That's why you can depend on Healthy Choice lunch meats to keep the sodium in check. The "healthy" rules also explain why the company uses a two-ounce serving size for its thin-sliced cuts. At one ounce, many don't reach the 10 percent nutrient minimum. But at two ounces, they have enough of one (protein).

Three of Celebrity's sliced hams--Healthy, Honey Cured Healthy, and Black Forest Smoked Healthy--knock the sodium down to 360 mg in two ounces. Their secret: the company replaces some of the sodium with potassium chloride, which can be a decent stand-in for salt (sodium chloride) in some foods.

And the Celebrity Healthy Hams excel in the taste department.

So, Oscar. So, Louis. So, Butterball. Maybe someone in Research & Development could give Celebrity a call?

YOUR SERVE OR MINE?

One glance at the front labels and you'd think that the 60 calories in Oscar Mayer Chopped Honey Ham beats the 70 calories in Oscar's Honey Ham. Not so fast.