My husband requested that I talk about salt: something that he finds he eats too much of.
On average, Americans consume 3,400 mg of sodium every day. At the same time, the recommended intake has been recently reduced from 2,400 mg to 2,300 mg of sodium per day. (2,400 mg sodium translates to 5,75 grams or a little over a teaspoon of table salt, i.e. sodium chloride). (1)
For African-Americans and for individuals who are 51 years and older or who suffer from hypertension, diabetes or chronic kidney disease, the recommendation is 1,500 mg sodium per day (3,75g salt). (1)
In today's busy lifestyle, it is easy to get too much salt. Often, there is no time to cook at home, and so the tendency is to either buy ready-made foods in the stores or opt out for a meal at a restaurant. Both types of foods usually contain more salt than what we'd add to the food we cook ourselves, thus increasing the our intake of salt.
What makes salt unhealthy is the sodium it contains: sodium raises blood pressure by hardening the arteries, which in turn forces the heart pump blood more vigorously. Raised blood pressure then leads to cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and congestive heart failure. (1)
Even though it seems that salt is only bad for you, it also has important tasks in our bodies. Sodium helps transmit information through the nerves and also helps maintain the electrolyte and fluid balance in the body. Also, sodium is needed in the absorption of certain nutrients from the small intestines. Thus, we all need salt and furthermore, need to get salt by eating it, as the body can't produce it. (2,3) Still, we get enough salt from the foods we eat without adding any salt, so there is no real danger of getting too little salt if you eat normally.
How to decrease the intake of salt, then? The easiest way is to cook food at home instead of buying processed foods: it is easier to control the amount of salt in the food we eat by making it ourselves. If there simply isn't time to cook and one must rely on restaurants and processed foods, then I recommend choosing foods that are low in sodium; some restaurants have such items on the menu, and if they don't, it should be possible to request food that has less added salt. And, try not to add any more salt to your food when on the plate in front of you.
Also, snack foods, like potato chips, tend to contain plenty of salt. Many cheeses, sausages and other processed milk and meat products tend to have very high amounts of salt as well. Check out the labels, you will soon detect the healthier foods among the salty ones.
My favorite way to decrease sodium intake is to use mountain salt instead of basic table salt. Unfortunately it is more expensive than normal salt but it helps decrease the amount of sodium in my cooking without affecting the taste! If you are interested in mountain salt, here's an article that has more information: http://www.thehealthbank.co.uk/nutrition_articles/salt.html
I hope this is helpful to you. If you have any questions about salt, or anything else, please ask! Also, if you have any ideas to further cut down on salt, please share :).
Anna-Kaisa
References:
1. USDA (http://www.cnpp.usda.
2. The Royal Society of Chemistry: (http://www.rsc.org/Chemsoc/
3. Nutritionvista: http://www.nutritionvista.com/
On average, Americans consume 3,400 mg of sodium every day. At the same time, the recommended intake has been recently reduced from 2,400 mg to 2,300 mg of sodium per day. (2,400 mg sodium translates to 5,75 grams or a little over a teaspoon of table salt, i.e. sodium chloride). (1)
For African-Americans and for individuals who are 51 years and older or who suffer from hypertension, diabetes or chronic kidney disease, the recommendation is 1,500 mg sodium per day (3,75g salt). (1)
In today's busy lifestyle, it is easy to get too much salt. Often, there is no time to cook at home, and so the tendency is to either buy ready-made foods in the stores or opt out for a meal at a restaurant. Both types of foods usually contain more salt than what we'd add to the food we cook ourselves, thus increasing the our intake of salt.
What makes salt unhealthy is the sodium it contains: sodium raises blood pressure by hardening the arteries, which in turn forces the heart pump blood more vigorously. Raised blood pressure then leads to cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and congestive heart failure. (1)
Even though it seems that salt is only bad for you, it also has important tasks in our bodies. Sodium helps transmit information through the nerves and also helps maintain the electrolyte and fluid balance in the body. Also, sodium is needed in the absorption of certain nutrients from the small intestines. Thus, we all need salt and furthermore, need to get salt by eating it, as the body can't produce it. (2,3) Still, we get enough salt from the foods we eat without adding any salt, so there is no real danger of getting too little salt if you eat normally.
How to decrease the intake of salt, then? The easiest way is to cook food at home instead of buying processed foods: it is easier to control the amount of salt in the food we eat by making it ourselves. If there simply isn't time to cook and one must rely on restaurants and processed foods, then I recommend choosing foods that are low in sodium; some restaurants have such items on the menu, and if they don't, it should be possible to request food that has less added salt. And, try not to add any more salt to your food when on the plate in front of you.
Also, snack foods, like potato chips, tend to contain plenty of salt. Many cheeses, sausages and other processed milk and meat products tend to have very high amounts of salt as well. Check out the labels, you will soon detect the healthier foods among the salty ones.
My favorite way to decrease sodium intake is to use mountain salt instead of basic table salt. Unfortunately it is more expensive than normal salt but it helps decrease the amount of sodium in my cooking without affecting the taste! If you are interested in mountain salt, here's an article that has more information: http://www.thehealthbank.co.uk/nutrition_articles/salt.html
I hope this is helpful to you. If you have any questions about salt, or anything else, please ask! Also, if you have any ideas to further cut down on salt, please share :).
Anna-Kaisa
References:
1. USDA (http://www.cnpp.usda.
2. The Royal Society of Chemistry: (http://www.rsc.org/Chemsoc/
3. Nutritionvista: http://www.nutritionvista.com/
Informative. I've cut down on salt intake and am trying to keep tabs on sugar as well. It will be nice if you could make a post about sugar intake, as well. Especially what raises and lowers blood sugar. It's not necessarily foods that contain sugar or sugar products, but also things like carbohydrates, foods low in protein and fat etc.
ReplyDelete-M
Thanks for the suggestion. I will follow up on that one soon :)
ReplyDelete-AK