No wonder people are confused about diets and health. One week coffee is bad for you, the next it's good for you. One week fat is bad for you, but then we find out it depends on what kind of fat it is. One week it's bad to have too many carbs, the next week we find out we need carbs but they have to be the "good" kind.
Now it's salt in the news again. I think salt has always been called "bad" for you, especially if you have high blood pressure or other medical problems. And now the FDA is going to hold hearings on the white stuff.
It's not really the salt you shake on your foods (something I never do anymore) it's the salt already in the packaged foods we buy. According to statistics, 75% of the salt we get comes from packaged foods and not the stuff we add ourselves.
11-29-2007 @5:10PM wynk said... Eh....you're being a bit misleading. I heard the NPR report on it this morning and they're not saying that salt is bad for you. They're saying that TOO MUCH sodium is bad for you (DUH, we all knew that), that we're consuming far more sodium than is healthy for our bodies, and (more importantly) that the FDA is reviewing their standards on how much salt should be allowed in processed foods and restaurant foods because the sodium levels are ridiculously high and that (like you said) most of the sodium we Americans consume comes from those processed foods and restaurant foods, not from the salt we add to food from the salt shaker.
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11-29-2007 @5:12PM wynk said... I might also add that this doesn't mean you should go on a no-sodium diet--your body needs some amount of sodium to keep everything balanced. Abornmally low sodium levels in the body cause stroke-like effects, including some pretty nasty confusion and memory loss.
A better idea is to just avoid processed foods and eating out except on special occasions. But that is true for more than just the sodium issue.
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11-29-2007 @5:18PM Jennifer said... I really hope that the FDA addresses this!!! I try to eat a lower sodium diet and one of the hardest things is finding pre-made foods that have low sodium. When you are shopping take a look at the sodium per serving and remember that there are probably more than one servings in each container of whatever it is... It is very easy to get an entire RDA in one tv dinner...
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11-29-2007 @5:33PM wynk said... Jennifer, cooking yourself at home (if you're able) would make a LOT of difference in your sodium intake. Because you're preparing the food yourself you have control over how much sodium you add. There are a lot of really quick meals with not a lot of salt that you can prepare and make quite tasty.
There are several ways to add flavor without a lot of sodium, too:
-spices
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11-29-2007 @5:33PM wynk said... grr browser cut off my post.
-low-sodium soy sauce - you can add less of this for the same amount of sodium as you can actual salt. Get high-quality low-sodium tamari and you won't sacrifice the flavor.
-anchovy paste...this sounds really weird and gross, but it is fantastic in Italian dishes. I use Ellie Krieger's pasta puttanesca recipe, it is fantastically flavorful while still being very healthy, and the anchovy paste adds all the salt you need while adding a lot of very non-fishy flavor.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_33335,00.htm
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11-29-2007 @5:38PM Lindsey said... Here's another tip:
Cook with kosher salt. You will use less.
Season at the table with natural sea salts or mineral salts. They contain more healthful minerals and less sodium.
Table salt is pure sodium nitrate. All the good nutrients have been stripped away. It's like white bread.
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11-29-2007 @6:57PM Stephanie said... I think you mean sodium chloride. Sodium nitrate is something else altogether (and a whole other topic). I think there are 2 important points here.
1. Sodium is an essential mineral: my grandmother was told to "cut back" on sodium, so she nearly cut it _out_ of her diet and was in the hospital as a result (she stopped eating celery and broccoli because they were "high sodium" vegetables).
2. Too much sodium is bad for you, esp. if you have other risk factors for high blood pressure (being overweight, family history, etc.). What the FDA wants to do is look at sodium in packaged foods. I think that is great, but even getting people to care is a good step in that direction. Look at how many things are now "trans-fat free" since people started to notice (let's just hope we don't all try to go "sodium free" like my grandmother).
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11-29-2007 @7:15PM Allison said... Yes, once again, it's a matter of what is "good" salt and what is not. Lindsey and others are spot on. Use "real" salt -- Celtic, Himalayan, or other non-processed sea salts that still have all the important minerals in them that your body needs -- and craves -- when you just consume sodium via processed foods or the white stuff that pours when it rains. It's amazing how your craving for salt diminishes when you are able to get those important mineral nutrients. Bottom line: if it's got color and clumps, salt is a healthy friend.
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11-29-2007 @8:30PM Nico said... We can live without it... it just a matter of getting used
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2312580
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11-29-2007 @9:22PM Allison said... Nico, I hope what you mean is we can do without SO MUCH of it. You might want to check out one of hundreds of sources that explain why salt is necessary to keep our bodies merely functioning, nevertheless optimally. www.theelementsofhealth/uploads/Celtic%20salt.pdf
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11-30-2007 @10:13AM Patrick said... I'm 100% with Wynk. Trying to boil this story down to the conclusion that salt is "bad" is counter-productive. It's not that black and white. In regular amounts, salt is perfectly fine for you. The problem is that food manufacturers overuse it to compensate for the massive amounts of processing their food has had to endure. And THAT's what this FDA study is looking into.
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11-30-2007 @3:08PM Lindsey said... I'm sorry, guys, Stephanie is right-- I meant sodium chloride.
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12-02-2007 @9:33PM stefano said... Salt isn't bad for you, too much of it is, as for everything else. The problem comes from the fact that we add even more salt to foods that are already salted.
http://www.webyaa.com/category/food
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