It just struck me last night that I have never ever mentioned about diet or food in this wellness blog. Incidentally, wherever I go these days, the topic of discussion veers towards ‘weight loss’. Anyhow, what is surprisingly overlooked all the time in these discussions is the major role of salt in our diet and life? So here is my pick of the day on SALT- the silent killer.
In our obsession to reduce on fats, carbs, sugar, colas, etc we have forgotten to monitor our intake of salt, which finds insidious ways of creeping into our body. We all know too much fat and sugar harms us, but did you know the same goes with our intake of daily salt. The World Health Organization has set a global target for maximum intake of salt for adults at 5 g/day (i.e., 2,000 mg/day of sodium). And the average salt consumption per person is between 10 and 15 grams!!!
Do you know how salt affects our health? Well, excess salt leads to water retention, adding up to a liter of water in the blood vessels at times. This not only makes you look plump but also adds to the volume of blood for the heart to pump. It is for this reason that cutting down salt helps maintain blood pressure at healthy levels. When your pressure goes down, the risk of developing heart diseases and stroke goes down too, irrespective of age.
A very modest decrease in the amount of salt- hardly detectable in the taste of food can have dramatic health benefits. In fact, a British Medical Journal study published last year in 2008 showed that eating less salt can cut down cardiovascular disease risk by a fourth and death by heart disease by a fifth over the following 10 to 15 years. Making a presentation at the American Heart Association’s 49th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, researchers from the University of California-San Francisco said that for every gram of salt that people reduce in their diets daily, a quarter of a million fewer new heart diseases cases and over 200.000 fewer deaths would occur over a decade. The researchers say that a 3-gram-a-day reduction in salt intake could result in six percent fewer cases of new heart disease, eight percent fewer heart attacks, and three percent fewer deaths. As per the study in the Journal of Urology, eating too much salt by children can result in excess calcium in the urine. In children, most stones are calcium-based and their eating habits, plus drinking too little water, put them at risk of developing kidney stones.
Now, I’m not suggesting that all of this reduction of salt should be in your cooked meals. More than the freshly cooked food at home, what people need to watch out for is sodium in processed foods, which is found not only in salty foods, but also in breads, biscuits and chocolates. Salt not only enhances taste and gives texture, but also binds in water, which helps manufacturers to add bulk to their product. What’s worrying is that nutritional labels on packaged foods mislead many consumers. Nutritional labels list the sodium not salt content, which is always higher. To get the salt content in a packaged food, multiply the sodium value by 2.5. Cutting back on processed foods is an easy way to monitor salt intake, besides of course, reducing your salt intake in your daily cooking. Once the salt in the food goes down, so will your blood pressure.
Eleven countries in the European Union have agreed to reduce salt intake by 16% over the next 4 years, when will you? So next time, avoid that tempting cheese burger, fries, salty foods or refuse to add a dash of extra salt in your food. And get surprised to see the magnitude of positive health impact, by just very small reductions in salt in your daily intake.
In our obsession to reduce on fats, carbs, sugar, colas, etc we have forgotten to monitor our intake of salt, which finds insidious ways of creeping into our body. We all know too much fat and sugar harms us, but did you know the same goes with our intake of daily salt. The World Health Organization has set a global target for maximum intake of salt for adults at 5 g/day (i.e., 2,000 mg/day of sodium). And the average salt consumption per person is between 10 and 15 grams!!!
Do you know how salt affects our health? Well, excess salt leads to water retention, adding up to a liter of water in the blood vessels at times. This not only makes you look plump but also adds to the volume of blood for the heart to pump. It is for this reason that cutting down salt helps maintain blood pressure at healthy levels. When your pressure goes down, the risk of developing heart diseases and stroke goes down too, irrespective of age.
A very modest decrease in the amount of salt- hardly detectable in the taste of food can have dramatic health benefits. In fact, a British Medical Journal study published last year in 2008 showed that eating less salt can cut down cardiovascular disease risk by a fourth and death by heart disease by a fifth over the following 10 to 15 years. Making a presentation at the American Heart Association’s 49th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, researchers from the University of California-San Francisco said that for every gram of salt that people reduce in their diets daily, a quarter of a million fewer new heart diseases cases and over 200.000 fewer deaths would occur over a decade. The researchers say that a 3-gram-a-day reduction in salt intake could result in six percent fewer cases of new heart disease, eight percent fewer heart attacks, and three percent fewer deaths. As per the study in the Journal of Urology, eating too much salt by children can result in excess calcium in the urine. In children, most stones are calcium-based and their eating habits, plus drinking too little water, put them at risk of developing kidney stones.
Now, I’m not suggesting that all of this reduction of salt should be in your cooked meals. More than the freshly cooked food at home, what people need to watch out for is sodium in processed foods, which is found not only in salty foods, but also in breads, biscuits and chocolates. Salt not only enhances taste and gives texture, but also binds in water, which helps manufacturers to add bulk to their product. What’s worrying is that nutritional labels on packaged foods mislead many consumers. Nutritional labels list the sodium not salt content, which is always higher. To get the salt content in a packaged food, multiply the sodium value by 2.5. Cutting back on processed foods is an easy way to monitor salt intake, besides of course, reducing your salt intake in your daily cooking. Once the salt in the food goes down, so will your blood pressure.
Eleven countries in the European Union have agreed to reduce salt intake by 16% over the next 4 years, when will you? So next time, avoid that tempting cheese burger, fries, salty foods or refuse to add a dash of extra salt in your food. And get surprised to see the magnitude of positive health impact, by just very small reductions in salt in your daily intake.
Bon Appetit
Vikram
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1 comment:
a much needed reminder, backed by facts.
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