Lowering sodium

[mamadelbosque]

So, we get the Center for Science in the Public Interest's health newsletter Nutrition Action, which is, IMO a very informative and quite unbiased take on various food/nutrition issues. I think it comes out every other month...

Anyhow. This month's 'topic' as it were was/is salt. According to it, most americans eat *FAR* too much salt on a daily basis, and when you start looking at labels, its not hard to see why - there is MASSIVE amounts of sodium in just about everything!! Not to mention that most restaruant/fast food places seem to give you a days' serving in a single item!!

Also, apparently 90% of americans will develop hypertension. Ninety percent!! Apparently about 60% of us either already HAVE hypertension (though mostly undiagnosed, and most that are diagnosed still aren't under control...), or have pre-hypertension. These numbers are staggering. Mostly, this is all caused because we all eat soo much salt... more lives could be saved by lowering our overall sodium intake than by just about anything else.

So, as a result, while grocery shopping today I started looking at labels and to some degree chose things based on how much frigging sodium they had in them.... Do any of you keep an eye on how much sodium you/your family eats on a daily basis? If so, how do you do so, and whats your 'goal' for how much you eat every day??

[blueridgewoman]

Honestly, I just refuse to eat processed foods. I make my own broth, buy meat straight from the farmer to avoid those freaky saline filler solutions they inject into grocery store meat, and we make everything from scratch. I use Real Salt, which is an unrefined salt from Nevada, and I use it liberally on my food after its been cooked, but I just really refuse to do processed food for a lot of reasons, not just sodium.

[mamadelbosque]

Don't get me wrong, I avoid a most processed stuff too. But I still buy cheese, and crackers and bread and tortillas and cereals, and even those things have an amazing amount of sodium in them! Yes, I suppose I could make them myself at home, but as much as I like to cook/bake, I just don't have the time (or energy) to make those things myself. I just don't. I tried making bread for a while, but tbh, it never turned out that great and I just decided taht it wasn't/isn't for me...

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by mamadelbosque

Don't get me wrong, I avoid a most processed stuff too. But I still buy cheese, and crackers and bread and tortillas and cereals, and even those things have an amazing amount of sodium in them! Yes, I suppose I could make them myself at home, but as much as I like to cook/bake, I just don't have the time (or energy) to make those things myself. I just don't. I tried making bread for a while, but tbh, it never turned out that great and I just decided taht it wasn't/isn't for me...

Salt content in both bread and cheese varies widely by manufacturer and how long it's meant to be on the shelf. A bread that is meant to be on the store shelf for a week will have a lot more salt than a bread that is delivered fresh daily. I usually stick to the fresh breads, and salt falls after yeast on their ingredient list because it's not being used as a preservative. For cheeses, many/most do seem to have some added salt... personally it's not something I worry about, since it is one of the only sources of salt in our diets other than what I use when I'm cooking.

I will say though that the link between sodium intake and hypertension is questionable. Kind of like the "link" between saturated fat and heart disease. We've been told for years that it is so, but the research doesn't necessarily bear that out.

[tanyalynn]

Originally Posted by cristeen

I will say though that the link between sodium intake and hypertension is questionable. Kind of like the "link" between saturated fat and heart disease. We've been told for years that it is so, but the research doesn't necessarily bear that out.

There is an interesting relationship between hypertension and magnesium deficiency though, and when you look at how much magnesium people typically consume, and discussions of whether the RDA for magnesium is too low anyway, well, that's where I'd look first for BP problems. And we did, for DH, and his BP goes down when we supplement magnesium--his family seems to need more than mine, one of those clues to why one family is prone to one type of health issue and another is not.