Why and how to take in less salt....

Today's Post: Thursday, 1-28-2010

A few days ago several online health news sources reported that people in the United States and many other countries take in far too much salt.

They say the evidence suggests that if this was improved it would save thousands of lives and cut medical costs.

They go on to talk about efforts in Australia and New York City to have food providers cut back on the salt in their foods.

First, it’s important to know that the average person in the United States now ingests a truly HUGE amount of salt.

Some experts say that taking in 2500 mg a day of sodium or less is protective. Others say that 1500 mg of sodium or less is even more protective.

There’s some evidence this is the case.

In one of those stories I found that in the United States men consume an average of 10.4 grams a day and women 7.3 grams. That’s 4 to 7 times too much for men & 3 to 5 times too much for women.

The first key to fixing this for you as an individual is in this information that I found in the same article: It said that people get 75 to 80 % of their salt from processed food.

With the exception of canned vegetables to some extent, the most healthful way to eat has very little processed food.

It mostly consists of eating whole foods and works even better if the foods are organically and naturally raised.

But Not eating processed foods is even more valuable than just the salt you stop ingesting. Not eating the processed foods such as snacks, desserts, and other foods not only slashes your salt intake, it helps you avoid refined grains, excessive sugar intake, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils (trans fats), other preservatives, artificial flavors and sweeteners and food coloring, MSG, oils high in omega 6, and corn and soy that has been genetically modified.

So, almost always NOT eating that stuff not only will slash your salt intake, it will make you less fat and dramatically improve your health.

The second key is that in the same way that restoring the balance between omega 3 oils and omega 6 oils to the ratio our bodies evolved to use improves your health, in addition to using less salt and ingesting less sodium eating far more foods that have potassium and magnesium has dramatic health benefits. In addition, supplementing with magnesium can help.

So, after you prune out the obvious sources of huge amounts of added salt from NOT eating processed foods for the most part, if you also eat some organic whole fruit and several servings a day of organic, nonstarchy vegetables and increase your potassium intake in your food, you gain in a host of ways.

Even people who have normal blood pressure find their readings go down when they switch to eating this way; & it does wonders for helping people with high blood pressure reduce it enough they can avoid medication or take less.

The name for this natural food with lots of whole produce and with far less salt way of eating is the DASH II diet.

Other studies show that combining eating less salt with added potassium and magnesium reliably lowers blood pressure.

Third, eat some foods raw instead of cooked so they need no spicing up; & use other spices such as curry, garlic, basil, and the like instead of salt. Salt imparts a more lively and warm feel to your food. But so do these other spices. That means that by using them well your food will taste good without any salt in some cases and far less in others. For convenience, I’ve found that powdered garlic and a store bought curry spice I like work best for this.

Some spices that work well are a bit too harsh if they are added to a nonfat dish; but if extra virgin olive oil is added you get the double benefit of a much mellower taste effect and many of the key nutrients in the food such as the carotenes actually become more bioavailable and you actually get more from your food. These spices tend to be hot such as chili powder and red pepper and some curries.

Fourth, have the food brought to you unsalted or only very lightly salted if you can. Then taste it & only add enough salt from a salt shaker that the food tastes right to you. That way you get the food salty enough to enjoy. But if the salt is added to the food before, it may well have five times that much salt. This is a great way to go. You get the better taste you want while your body gets a fifth as much sodium.

Fifth, avoid MSG in your food. The S stands for sodium and that sodium affects you just like the sodium in salt (sodium chloride.)

That can be hard to do since the people who make it and add it to your food would prefer to leave it in. The people who make it get paid when it’s used. And the people who add it do too since MSG tends to result in people eating MORE of that food.

So, they often do NOT list MSG on the label. They’ll list autolized yeast or hydrolyzed protein or “spices” instead.

(By the way, at Whole Foods recently, I FINALLY found a mustard that does NOT include “spices” on their list of ingredients. Annie’s Naturals brand has only real mustard and NO MSG or unnamed, “spices.”)

Many Chinese restaurants now no longer use MSG and will say so on their menu or outside signs -- and most of the rest will leave it out of your food if you ask.

And, there is a second reason to avoid MSG besides the sodium. Studies in China comparing places that used lots of MSG and those that used none or very little found the places where lots was used had far more fat people. In other words, you eat enough more when MSG is used to spice your food, you WILL be more fat. Since you can make foods taste good enough to enjoy without MSG, why use it?

So what does all this sodium avoidance and balancing get you?

Your chances of having a heart attack or stroke go down by quite a bit.

Your chances of getting stroke or one that causes lifelong disability go down by a lot.

And, your chances of getting kidney disease or having your vision harmed go down.

We even recently found out that your chances of getting Alzheimer’s disease go down.

And, last but far from least, your chances of needing the doses and kinds of hypertension drugs that quite literally can make you feel sick all the time go down too.