Some Salty Facts Keeping to a Healthy Diet

I have come to view certain common food ingredients (e.g., salt, sugar, and fat) as "toxic" in the sense that they should be consumed only in small quantities. The current recommendation regarding salt consumption, calibrated in terms of sodium, is to consume less than 2,400 milligrams (mg) per day. This amounts to about 1 teaspoon of table salt daily. Understanding that salt is a flavor enhancer, I have personally been looking for ways to reduce my dietary salt input but not to the point where my meals become tasteless. A recent article about dietary salt contained some very interesting tidbits of information (see: On the Plate, a Pinch or a Pound?). I list them below:

• Packaged foods are an easy target, often so gunked up by chemicals that it takes a pile of salt to get any flavor at all. As for restaurants, the salt initiative seems to be aimed at fast-food joints, but salt plays an important role in nicer kitchens, too — the kind where actual human beings cook actual food.

• When a chef cooks in [a restaurant], salt is only one of the many tools — along with garlic or citrus or fresh herbs, say — she can use to build flavor. But if you’re stirring a huge vat of goo in an industrial food factory a mile below the earth’s surface, salt is one of the only tricks you have, so you have to use it a lot.

• Katz’s [Delicatessen of New York's] justifiably famous corned beef sandwich, with mustard but only two of the six pickles the counter guy gave me (along with his number), came to a truly remarkable 4,490 milligrams of sodium. That’s about two whole days’ worth in one sandwich, nearly the equivalent of 10 McDonald’s hamburgers.

So where does all of this leave me personally? First of all and to the extent possible, I will try to avoid most prepared and packaged foods except perhaps those that make specifically mention attention to reduced salt. Obviously, it's a good idea to read the ingredients on all labels. Secondly, I am going to view ketchup, mustard, and other condiments with deep suspicion. Ketchup has 150-200 mg of sodium in 1 Tbsp and who uses only 1 Tbsp of ketchup on a hamburger? Thirdly, I will continue to cook with a little salt but, as the top chefs recommend, add small amounts periodically when cooking to bring out the flavor. Lastly and pertaining to corn beef accompanied by dill pickles, I am still thinking about this one.

Comments

[Raw Food Diet]

these ideas that you have given us, help individuals around the world understand more about diet and and its benefits.

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Elizabeth, sugar is also mitogenic and causes cells to proliferate, so sugar also plays a big role in the development of cancer. Sugar can also supress your immune systems by as much as 50% for 5 hours, makin you more susceptible to disease and infection.

[Andrea]

Great comment as and as a chef I can only agree many restaurants are still far off of understanding that great taste has nothing to do with adding more salt and pepper but with sourcing great products and using herbs and seasons beside of salt.

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