# Salt restriction



## cave76 (Jun 23, 2014)

"Food companies and restaurants could soon face government pressure to make their foods less salty — a long-awaited federal effort to try to prevent thousands of deaths each year from heart disease and stroke."

FDA set to pepper food firms to reduce salt

Good thing? Probably. But according to many articles " the correlation between salt intake and poor health has remained tenuous."

It's Time to End the War on Salt - Scientific American

What I wonder (and this is just my personal 'wonder') is if salt restriction is mo' bettah AFTER a person's blood pressure has risen.


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## Andy M. (Jun 23, 2014)

My understanding is that only a small percentage of the population is negatively effected by salt consumption.  Regardless, cutting back on salt has been a medical direction for decades.  

This is among many medical "truths" that are being disproved recently.  My doctor has never told me to cut back on salt.


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## cave76 (Jun 23, 2014)

How some issues become "truths": They're often buried deep in the past and continue to be expanded on through the years by people who don't bother to read the science. 

"Fears over salt first surfaced more than a century ago. In 1904 French doctors reported that *six *of their subjects who had high blood pressure—a known risk factor for heart disease—were salt fiends. Worries escalated in the 1970s when Brookhaven National Laboratory's Lewis Dahl claimed that he had  "unequivocal" evidence that salt causes hypertension: he induced high blood pressure in rats by feeding them the human equivalent o*f 500 grams of sodium a day. (Today the average American consumes 3.4 grams of sodium, or 8.5 grams of salt, a day.)"*

Six patients?
"unequivocal" ?


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## CraigC (Jun 23, 2014)

+1 on the doc not suggesting I cut back.


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## GLC (Jun 23, 2014)

It is well to remember that humans and many, many other mammals thrive in widely varying environments, including the amount of salt in foodstuffs. So kidneys are adept at maintaining appropriate levels of sodium. There are limits, of course. You can't survive drinking sea water alone, because, while the kidneys may well be able to deal with the salt, they will need to do it by using more water (as urine) than the sea water provides. And early hunter gatherers likely spent at least some of the time short of salt and avidly sought sources. Meat alone doesn't provide enough salt. People can get into trouble on the so-called Paleo Diet from salt deprivation. (There's nothing about the diet that reflects "paleo" man's diet, anyway.) 

The evidence suggests that the very small reduction in blood pressure in people with significantly reduced salt intake really reflects a salt intake so low that the body can't maintain the level of sodium it seeks. Unless you absolutely need to, it's not a good thing to deprive your body of a tital element to the point where it fails in some way, such as maintaining blood pressure. Your blood pressure may be high, but it's not caused by salt intake. If you reduce salt intake to zero, you will indeed reduce blood pressure. It will also be zero. 

It's important to note that people with physical problems that either affect kidney function or that otherwise mandate an abnormally low sodium level may be forced to reduce salt intake dramatically. It's forcing the issue, not fixing the problem, but the problem may not be fixable, and the best we can do is force the sodium affect down. 

And, as the SA article points out, when you are dealing with very large numbers, small changes may have effects that people imagine are large but are really miniscule. Lower blood pressures by 1 mm of mercury, and a few people live a bit longer. But...

The article cites the guesstimate that a 34% reduction in salt will "save 44,000 lives a year."  What is that in individual terms? Well, that's 1/7114 of the US population. So we each get a theoretical 1/20 of a day or roughly one hour. That's assuming you don't die of something else in the meantime. And that's little more than a guess and may be entirely incorrect. (Probably no more correct than my back-of-the-envelope calculations, so don't bother pointing out the errors. You know what I mean by the effect being negligible.) 

(I shall also continue to use MSG, for that is another entirely bogus evil.)


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## Mad Cook (Jun 23, 2014)

There is a school of thought that food manufacturers use excessive salt in order to cover up poor ingredients especially in cheap ready meals.


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## Zhizara (Jun 23, 2014)

I have reduced my salt intake enough that I find KFC chicken too salty for me.  

I hope more vendors will come out with a lower salt version.  I'd love to have some KFC chicken again.


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## cave76 (Jun 23, 2014)

GLC said:


> The article cites the guesstimate that a 34% reduction in salt will "save 44,000 lives a year."  What is that in individual terms? Well, that's 1/7114 of the US population. *So we each get a theoretical 1/20 of a day or roughly one hour. *
> 
> *That's assuming you don't die of something else in the meantime*. And that's little more than a guess and may be entirely incorrect. (Probably no more correct than my back-of-the-envelope calculations, so don't bother pointing out the errors. You know what I mean by the effect being negligible.)
> 
> (I shall also continue to use MSG, for that is another entirely bogus evil.)



Thanks----- and I believe your guessimates are close to the facts. Now, what should I do with my added One Hour that I gain if I restrict salt? Probably eat some Ramen noodles complete with salt AND msg!


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## cave76 (Jun 23, 2014)

Mad Cook said:


> There is a school of thought that food manufacturers use excessive salt in order to cover up poor ingredients especially in cheap ready meals.



That and sugar.


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## GLC (Jun 23, 2014)

Mad Cook said:


> There is a school of thought that food manufacturers use excessive salt in order to cover up poor ingredients especially in cheap ready meals.



That wouldn't be anything new. I wonder. Might be something to that. As anyone knows who has attempted to cook without adding salt or with little salt, if you want flavor, you have to be selective about ingredients and use various herbs and spices, all of which are much more expensive than salt. At least with lots of salt, it's got some flavor.... salt flavor. And we're wired to appreciate salt taste, from the days of it being hard to come by but necessary. We respond strongly to the things we once hunted for, salt, sugar, and fat. Fat is more mouth feel, but we crave it almost as much as the other two. Maybe that accounts for peanut butter's popularity, the commercial variety. Lots of salt. Lots of fat. Added sugar. It's a lot more attractive than a pile of plain peanuts that I guess you'd call the main ingredient. If it didn't already exist, would it appear in fancy restaurants as:

"Puree of peanut, glistening with its own flavorful oil, lightly salted and sweetened to a delightful balance."


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## GotGarlic (Jun 23, 2014)

Hee I, GLC! 

Another benefit of cooking with salt is that it counters bitter flavors.


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## Mad Cook (Jun 23, 2014)

Assuming you don't have condition that precludes the use of salt in food, I find that my boddy regulates its own salt intake. When it's hot and I'm perspiring a lot and I drink more to replace fluid loss I find my food needs more salt to taste good than when the weather is cooler and I'm not drinking as much.

Under normal weather conditions I don't use much salt at all and never put it on my plate of food unless it's chips (you can't eat chips without salt and malt vinegar!) or eggs, and I don't put a lot in when I'm cooking. I sometimes even forget to salt potatoes when boiling them and I don't miss the salt.

Interestingly, although I am overweight both my cholesterol level and my blood pressure are normal.


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## GLC (Jun 24, 2014)

They used to say that, if you can't taste the salt tablets, you really need them. Isn't that an extraordinary adaptation, that the body responds by killing the taste of salt and inducing you use more. 

I am making an effort to use less salt. Not because I'm worried about its effects, but because I'd like to experience the real flavor of the food, and I've always tended to use more salt than necessary. (The effort is not entirely successful, to say the least.)


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## Andy M. (Jun 24, 2014)

GLC said:


> ...I am making an effort to use less salt. Not because I'm worried about its effects, but because I'd like to experience the real flavor of the food, and I've always tended to use more salt than necessary. (The effort is not entirely successful, to say the least.)




As a kid growing up, my parents and sister used to grimace at how much salt I used.  I still use salt more than many.  However, I use less in my cooking because I know that otherwise it would be too salty for some.  The key is to not let anyone see you adding salt as they will ALWAYS think it's too much because "everyone knows Andy uses too much salt"


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## GotGarlic (Jun 24, 2014)

Andy M. said:


> As a kid growing up, my parents and sister used to grimace at how much salt I used.  I still use salt more than many.  However, I use less in my cooking because I know that otherwise it would be too salty for some.  The key is to not let anyone see you adding salt as they will ALWAYS think it's too much because "everyone knows Andy uses too much salt"



Andy, you may be one of those people who tastes bitter flavors more than most people and adding salt suppresses bitterness: http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/salt-trumps-bitter/


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## cave76 (Jun 24, 2014)

GLC said:


> They used to say that, if you can't taste the salt tablets, you really need them. Isn't that an extraordinary adaptation, that the body responds by killing the taste of salt and inducing you use more.



GLC---- Could you furnish us with some valid articles that address that lack of taste for salt? I'd never heard that and would be interested in reading them.


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## Andy M. (Jun 24, 2014)

GotGarlic said:


> Andy, you may be one of those people who tastes bitter flavors more than most people and adding salt suppresses bitterness: http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/salt-trumps-bitter/




GG, I haven't noticed that to be the case.  When others cook, I don't taste bitterness.  I just believe that most people don't use enough salt in cooking.  This is evident if you watch an actual chef doing real cooking.  They really load up with salt.


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## GotGarlic (Jun 24, 2014)

I agree with you - I'm a salt fiend  I had seared scallops over squid-ink fettuccine once. I tasted the fettuccine by itself, to see if it had a flavor of its own (it didn't) and it was bland. Then I tasted it with some of the scallop, which had been well-salted and beautifully seared and it was delicious  And I sometimes use finishing salts like smoked or the Himalayan pink salt. Yummy


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## bakechef (Jun 24, 2014)

I love salt.  My weight and stress levels dictate my blood pressure more than anything. Even though I'm a little overweight, my blood pressure is perfect because I exercise.

Sent from my IdeaTabA2109A using Discuss Cooking mobile app


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## Roll_Bones (Jun 25, 2014)

Mad Cook said:


> There is a school of thought that food manufacturers use excessive salt in order to cover up poor ingredients especially in cheap ready meals.



I recently bought a package of Zatarin's rice and beans.  It was good, but they really could do as good or better job with less salt.
I like salt and this product is very salty. Very salty.



Zhizara said:


> I have reduced my salt intake enough that I find KFC chicken too salty for me.
> I hope more vendors will come out with a lower salt version.  I'd love to have some KFC chicken again.



I have always thought KFC was salty and i have never worried about or changed my salt intake.
Salt and pepper is what makes fried chicken so good.
But once again. they could ease up on the salt and most likely the product would still be good.


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## chiklitmanfan (Jun 25, 2014)

We are now in our late 60's and excessive salt intake physically affects my wife and I. Salt naturally occurs in our diet so adding salt is usually not necessary. I can notice the effects of excess salt, especially after eating a restaurant meal. We end up all puffy, bloated, and sore in the joints.

Just my humble opinion but that is why we prefer eating at home because I don't think much restaurant food is especially healthy. We feel better eating at home and monitoring our intake of certain ingredients.


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## Addie (Jun 25, 2014)

I am on the minimum dose for BP medication. And I have never been admonished by my doctor to use less salt. I have never been a big salt user. Days, sometimes weeks go by before I reach for the salt shaker. I have found that using sea salt, I use even less than I did before.


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## GLC (Jun 25, 2014)

cave76 said:


> GLC---- Could you furnish us with some valid articles that address that lack of taste for salt? I'd never heard that and would be interested in reading them.



That's a bit of old sports and military "wisdom" that predates better knowledge of hydration and is sometimes sort of correct but isn't very precise language. It's not quite "lack of taste for salt." The belief was that, if you took your salt tablets, and they didn't taste salty, it indicated you needed them. Almost certainly, the physical reality behind it is that, when significantly dehydrated, one may find a constant salty taste in one's mouth, probably from the higher concentration of salt in the saliva. (A search of SALT TASTE DEHYDRATION will find multiple sources.) That will naturally tend to lessen the contrast with anything salty that's ingested. The tablet no longer tastes as salty. No doubt a dry mouth contributes to that by not dissolving the table much before it's swallowed. 

It's certainly not a reliable guide, and the real issue in dehydration is water, not salt.


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## Stock Pot (Jun 26, 2014)

*The War on Salt.*

It's Time to End the War on Salt - Scientific American


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## Andy M. (Jun 26, 2014)

Stock Pot said:


> It's Time to End the War on Salt - Scientific American




Thanks for posting this.  I read it the other day and never got back to post it here.


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## PrincessFiona60 (Jun 26, 2014)

Even cows know when they need salt in their diets and go looking for it.  We are smarter than cows and our bodies know how much salt (sodium) it needs to function.  My blood pressure is salt sensitive, but when I am craving something salty, it means I need it and bedamned the sodium restriction my Cardiologist deems necessary.


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## Andy M. (Jun 26, 2014)

It is both sad and frightening to me how easily people can be swayed by a single news report to completely change the way we do things.  We have been treated poorly by the scientific community and media as far as foods, additives and their general healthfulness.  

It's interesting how much is being debunked in recent months.


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## GLC (Jun 26, 2014)

The problems are:

1 - Scientists know what studies are for, which is primarily to point the way to the next study. It is impossible in almost all cases to account for every possible factor influencing outcomes, so the results of studies can only ever me seen within the strict context of that study and how it was designed. Scientists often so take that for granted that they fail to fully recognize that their results will be misinterpreted and that people will assume too much. They will, indeed, sometimes even make statements that sound like they are declaring the definitive answer, but it is ALWAYS implied that it's all tentative. Confronted with being taken as definitive, they may well respond, "But it was a study, and everyone knows that's all it is and that when I say it shows such and such, I mean that such and such is true ONLY if the results turn out to be truths in the future."

2 - Journalists are often rather poorly educated and are not often trained in any scientific discipline. If mostly you took journalism classes, you weren't learning much about anything else. So they don't know how science works and that studies are just steps toward the next study and that it is fully expected that conclusions will change. If it weren't true that conclusions would invariably change, science could close up shop and go fishing, since there would be nothing new to learn. But it makes a better story that so and so causes obesity and an even better story that so and so turns out to not cause obesity. Neither is the final word and was never intended by the study's author to be so. The journalist seeks story, not truth.

3 - Critical thinking skills are even more neglected than science education. When someone believes in things that they don't understand, they're at risk of accepting a magician's stage trick as reality. The journalist waved his hands and turned tentative knowledge into definitive fact, and without reading the original paper and without possessing a understanding of how science works, the reader can't possibly understand how he did it and therefore shouldn't take it as reliable fact. And in the case of more intentional deception, follow the rule: Never automatically believe anything when the person who tells you has anything to gain from your belief.


The Internet has caused people to be more ignorant than ever in human history, in terms of the shear amount of patently false things they believe to be true. Primitive man may have believed wrongly about nearly everything, but the everything didn't amount to too much. Pre-Internet, people had to make considerable effort to acquire bogus knowledge beyond the evil effects of their local newspapers and schools. Now, all the false, self-serving, and plain loony "facts" of the world are at one's fingertips.


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## cave76 (Jun 26, 2014)

GLC said:


> . *Now, all the false, self-serving, and plain loony "facts" of the world are at one's fingertips.[*/QUOTE]
> 
> So true!!


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## cave76 (Jun 26, 2014)

GLC said:


> 2 - Journalists are often rather poorly educated



OOPS! 




> and are not often trained in any scientific discipline.=



True dat.


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## GotGarlic (Jun 26, 2014)

This seems apropos: 







Loved this further explanation below the comic (The Red Flags of Quackery v2 | Sci-ence): 


> *Helps Your Body…*: I once met an Osteopath at a small gathering. I nearly bit my tongue off as she told me about how she “helps the body heal itself.” Which is a clever way of saying “I don’t do anything, but feel free to thank me when you get better. Toodles!” Also note that if your body was really “off balance” or needed help “removing toxins,” you’d be at a real doctor, not buying herbs at CVS, because your skin would be yellow and you wouldn’t be able to stand."



Note: Osteopaths do actually receive a medical education comparable to MDs, but the origin of the profession was a little dubious.


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## cave76 (Jun 26, 2014)

GotGarlic said:


> This seems apropos:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Like! And I can add to those X 100.


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## Zagut (Jun 26, 2014)

Andy M. said:


> It is both sad and frightening to me how easily people can be swayed by a single news report to completely change the way we do things. We have been treated poorly by the scientific community and media as far as foods, additives and their general healthfulness.
> 
> It's interesting how much is being debunked in recent months.


 

It's interesting yet not at all surprising. 
Food, additives, and their general healthfulness aren't all the media treats the general public poorly about.


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## CharlieD (Jun 26, 2014)

I love salt. But it is really tirying when everything we buy is salty.


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## Addie (Jun 26, 2014)

KFC, Zatarain, Hamburger Helper, Ramen Noodle packets, bullion cubes, so far. Any other foods we find too salty? Just add to the list.


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## Addie (Jun 26, 2014)

Andy M. said:


> GG, I haven't noticed that to be the case.  When others cook, I don't taste bitterness.  I just believe that most people don't use enough salt in cooking.  This is evident if you watch an actual chef doing real cooking.  They really load up with salt.



I have to agree with you Andy. I have had some dishes come out of the kitchen that were almost garbage due to the salt content. What brilliant person ever came up with the concept of salting every single layer or addition to a dish?


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## Zhizara (Jun 26, 2014)

Zatarain's rice mixes.


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## Dawgluver (Jun 26, 2014)

Addie said:


> KFC, Zatarain, Hamburger Helper, Ramen Noodle packets, bullion cubes, so far. Any other foods we find too salty? Just add to the list.




I haven't had them for awhile, but as I recall, Zatarain's came out with a low sodium version of some of their stuff.  It's not bad, but I do prefer me some real hambone!


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## Addie (Jun 26, 2014)

Having lived in South Texas for four years, I can honestly say, I never had Cajun food. The closest I ever came to it was Grits with an egg over it. And there sure were a lot of Cajuns in the town I lived in. Had to be for the shrimping fleet.


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