When you take in sodium, your body pulls water into your bloodstream and increases the volume of blood in your system. This puts more pressure on your arteries. Sodium also causes your blood vessels to constrict, which puts added pressure on your blood vessels.
A package of Keebler Cheese and Peanut Butter sandwich crackers has 250 calories and 430 milligrams of sodium. Lance’s Toasty sandwich crackers have 240 milligrams of sodium, and Ritz’s peanut butter and crackers come in at 300 milligrams. If you eat any of these packaged peanut butter and crackers, your body will react to this high amount of sodium within 30 minutes.
The American Heart Association says you can see a reduction in your blood pressure in a few days if you make significant cuts in the sodium in your diet. Rather than reach for the packaged peanut butter and crackers, make a trip to the grocery store to find sodium-free peanut butter and low-sodium crackers. A tablespoon of Smucker’s Natural peanut butter has zero sodium (it’s just peanuts) and 5 Ritz Hint of Salt crackers has only 30 milligrams of sodium.