When I first heard that the public health community was taking on salt intake as an issue, I groaned. Silently, of course, since I like my job! Trans fat, high fructose corn syrup, restaurant menu labeling – those issues I understand, but salt? I love salt! Food cooked without salt is tasteless. A pinch of salt in a recipe doesn’t necessarily make the dish taste salty – it brings out the flavor of the dish.
However, after hearing my boss give a talk recently about reducing salt intake, I not only became convinced, but I realized that salt reduction is actually compatible with good cooking and eating.
We only need about 1,500 mg. per day of sodium, and the tolerable upper limit is 2,300 mg. per day. However, the average adult takes in more than 3,400 mg. a day, which is higher than the upper limit by a lot. Our lifetime risk of developing high blood pressure is 90%, and we all know that high blood pressure leads to strokes and other cardiovascular disease. High blood pressure also increases the risk for renal disease.
Most of the salt we get comes from processed or restaurant foods. My favorite chart in the presentation shows where our sodium comes from. 12% is inherent in the foods we eat, 6% is added at the table, 5% is added during cooking, and 77% comes from processed and restaurant foods. Voila! The answer is not to cook bland, tasteless food with no salt. The answer is to cook meals yourself, with fresh, unprocessed ingredients, so you can control your salt level. We rely heavily on restaurant food in this country. Expenditures on food eaten away from home have increased steadily over the years, and while there are options that seem healthy (i.e. low in fat), they are often high in sodium. For example, a McDonald’s grilled chicken sandwich has 1,190 mg. of sodium, almost our daily allotment.
I’m not advocating for going to extremes. As I said in my posting on Mark Bittman’s article on purging our kitchens for the new year, I’m not about to make my own stock when I can open a can (or carton). However, I try to choose a healthier brand. And I think adding a pinch of salt to a recipe brings out the flavor better than adding extra spices or herbs. But I will be mindful of minimizing my use of processed foods. After all, that is consistent with good cooking. If it promotes health benefits also, so much the better!
Check out the presentation at http://lahealthaction.org/library/Dr_Fieldings_ppt_reducing_salt_intake.v2.pdf
Wendy's Word 