Why Louisiana Brand Original Hot Sauce Is One Of The Unhealthiest Options

Hot sauces are great for packing a lot of flavor into just a few drops, and oftentimes, part of how they deliver that flavor is through sodium. But not all brands are equal on the sodium front. One label, Louisiana Brand Original hot sauce, packs a whopping 200 milligrams of sodium per one teaspoon serving.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, hot sauces typically have around 124 milligrams of sodium per teaspoon. This makes Louisiana Brand Original hot sauce approximately 61% higher than the typical hot sauce. One serving of Louisiana Brand Original hot sauce accounts for about 9% of the USDA's daily recommended sodium intake for adults.

Sodium is an essential part of a balanced diet, and its most common edible form — salt — is part of what makes food delicious. But diets that are chronically too high in sodium can cause some major health issues, including high blood pressure, kidney disease, stroke, and heart failure. In moderation, Louisiana Brand hot sauce is fine, but you may not want to douse every meal in it if you're watching your sodium intake.

The high sodium content of Louisiana Brand Original hot sauce may make it one of the unhealthiest hot sauces on the market today, but all that salt serves a purpose. With an ingredient list only three items long — aged peppers, distilled vinegar, and salt — there's not a lot of places for the manufacturer to tease out extra flavor.

What's more concerning is that many people use much more than a teaspoon of hot sauce at a time — and heaping the sauce on can add up quickly when each teaspoon is 9% of your daily sodium intake. By comparison, Crystal, another popular Louisiana-style hot sauce, has 110 milligrams of salt per teaspoon, or 5% of the daily recommended value. The extremely popular Huy Fong Sriracha has even less, just 75 milligrams of salt, or only 3% of the daily recommended value. 

If you're craving a spicy meal, try making Nashville hot chicken from scratch, where you can control the level of salt added, or perfect your own fried chicken spice blend.

The salt content in Louisiana Brand Original hot sauce can be something to keep in mind if you're concerned about your sodium intake, but what about the other two ingredients? Louisiana Brand hot sauce contains cayenne peppers that are combined with salt and vinegar then fermented for at least one year.

A common ingredient in vinegar-based hot sauces, cayenne peppers are naturally high in vitamin C and contain natural antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. The fermenting process, meanwhile, reduces the heat of the peppers and adds complexity to the flavor profile. Fermented foods are also said to have certain health benefits when it comes to introducing bacteria to the gut that can potentially have a probiotic impact. And, fermentation can sometimes improve the nutrients available in foods.

Distilled or white vinegar, one of the many types of vinegar, is Louisiana Brand hot sauce's third ingredient and it may also have some mild health benefits. Some studies suggest that distilled vinegar might help reduce cholesterol and maintain healthy blood sugar levels, though, since it is acidic, it should be consumed in moderation.

Like other vinegar-based hot sauces, the amounts of cayenne pepper and vinegar in a bottle of Louisiana Brand — just a handful of peppers and a few ounces of vinegar — are so little, that whatever health benefits may exist are negligible. With so few ingredients overall, it seems that the sodium is what makes an impact on this style of hot sauce when it comes to health.