DASH Diet for Lowering Sodium Intake and Treating High Blood Pressure

The DASH diet is a low sodium diet. It is recommended for people with high blood pressure and heart disease. Following the Canada food guide and eliminating packaged and processed foods will achieve the same result.

DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (or high blood pressure)

The DASH diet is an eating plan that is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low fat dairy foods. It is also low in saturated fat and total fat. Fruits and vegetables are good sources of potassium and of course dairy products are good sources of calcium.

Research has shown that foods high in potassium and calcium help reduce blood pressure.

Teach patients to follow the Canada Food Guide and eat fresh foods instead of packaged ones. This will automatically create a low sodium diet.

Teaching patients to avoid pre-packaged foods and to read food labels is a nursing responsibility in overall health promotion.

The dietary approaches to stop hypertension, food label know how, and the Canada Food Guide all contribute to the body of knowledge that is used by a registered nurse in health promotion in Canada.

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More information about Canadian food

Distinctive Canadian food

Information about the Canadian Food Label

Go to the list of high potassium foods

Read about a low sodium diet

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So why is this information important if you want to become a nurse in Canada?

Because nurses have to know about nutrition and that includes the types of food in the Canadian diet that are high or low sodium.

Here are the specific competencies that will be tested on the CRNE (Canadian Registered Nurse Exam) that may test your knowledge base in nutrition.

HW (Health and Wellness) - promotes healthy lifestyle practices (e.g., physical activity and exercise, nutrition, rest/sleep, stress management, sexual health, family planning, contraception, hygiene, waste disposal, food preparation, infection prevention and control, smoking cessation, mental health).

CH (Changes in Health) - promotes and manages adequate nutrition (e.g., burns, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, infant gastric reflux, obesity, malnutrition).

CH (Changes in Health) - applies knowledge from the health sciences (e.g., physiology, pathophysiology, psychopathology, pharmacology, microbiology, epidemiology, genetics, immunology, nutrition, sociology). (Jurisdictional Collaborative Process, 2006)

Typically a question will present a patient with a specific requirement for sodium alteration (such as a client with high blood pressure who would require a low sodium (DASH diet), and then you will be required to select the appropriate menu items from the foods that are presented.

Even people with impaired kidney function may benefit from following the DASH diet.

If you are not familiar with the names and variety of Canadian food check out the pages on the site that review some of the common foods and their names.

Go from this page on the DASH diet to the page that explains some Canadian food.

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Go back to Canadian Food and Nutrition Information for IEN's