I see that salt is once more on the menu. Dick Puddlecote points us to this.
See that? Not whether to, but how to – as it what we eat is any of their damned business. Frankly, the amount of salt I consume is my business alone and no one else’s and I will do all that I can to keep it that way. Indeed, the whole salt links with cardiovascular problems is based upon junk science anyway. I’m pretty liberal with salt in my cooking and that will continue. I will also add it afterwards to flavour as I see fit. And, despite all the salt I intake, I have low blood pressure, not high.
The worry is that people take this bunk seriously. A while back I witnessed a couple of youngsters who thought that pistachio nuts were junk food and dangerous because they had added salt. I did my best to disabuse them of that notion, pointing out that nuts had proteins and these are essential to our diet. Indeed, a low salt diet can kill you – our cells need it to maintain their structural integrity. A high salt diet for most of us will be harmless as our bodies are designed to excrete the excess. And as DP points out, in other parts of the world, the population consumes more than we do with no noticeable effects on health.
Never mind, though, the puritans have salt firmly in their sights and are seeking to micromanage our lives for us.
Raised blood pressure is the dominant cause of death and disability in adults worldwide,
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but I’ll tell you what raises my blood pressure and it isn’t what I eat…
Still, despite the fact that salt intake does not adversely affect our health, our health secretary is determined to indulge in the same kind of micromanagement as the coalition’s predecessors.
Companies will also agree to reduce salt levels to ensure that average intake falls to 6g a day by next year.
Under the terms of the agreement, manufacturers will make sure that sausages have no more than 1.13g of salt per 100g, tomato ketchup no more than 1.83g per 100g, and pizzas 1g of salt per 100g.
My response to this will be the same as my response to shop bought sandwiches without butter. Two pieces of dry bread slapped around a filling with no butter simply means that I won’t buy them. I will prepare them myself at home and make sure that I do get a bit of butter on my bread. I will decide how much salt I eat, not Andrew Lansley or the appeasers in the food industry. It being my body and my health, the only person who gets to decide what I eat is me. If they insist upon trying, I will simply prepare more food at home that meets my taste and take it with me.
On a related note, Mrs L was complaining about the tendency to only have skimmed milk at work. Skimmed – or even semi-skimmed – milk is pointless and frankly tastes pretty disgusting. You might as well take your coffee black rather than put that muck in it. I suggested that she buy some gold top and take it in with her. That way she gets a decent tasting coffee. Sure enough, I noticed a bottle of gold top in the fridge the following day waiting to go into work.
Just as an observation; my sister in law and her husband both have high blood pressure, yet both have BMI indexes in the ‘Normal’ range. They watch their salt and calorie intakes hawkishly.
Contrariwise, my wife and I do not worry about my salt and calorie intake. Are in the same age group. Yet do not suffer from high blood pressure etc. My own opinion is shaped thusly; that stressing about what you eat may well be more harmful than eating what you need, and damn the content.
Totally agree about semi skimmed milk, watery muck. Any dairy product apart from cream in coffee is an abomination.
🙄
Stress causes high blod pressure. Stress, by messing up adrenal hormones, also causes us to retain salt and excrete potassium. Docotor are bloody useless at distinguishing between stress related high blood pressure and eating too much salty food.
Thus I nearly died because a doctor wanted to lecture me on my lifestyle rather than treating my problem (Conn’s Syndrome)
And the fact is that processed food often has a high salt content to mask the lack of flavours that have been obliterated due to the processing of the said food – cereals, bread, microwave food et al.
But anyway, that’s besides the point, salt enhances the flavour of a lot of foods – can you imagine fish and chips without a sprinkling of salt? Me neither.
And what about the devine flavour of Fleur de Sel from Noirmoutier – a lovely flavour.
My mum, god bless her, so brainwashed by the guff from these taxpayer funded food Nazis and their propaganda, suffered severe cramps and didn’t know why. An active woman in her sixties simply believed the shite from the MSM and cut salt out from her diet completely, and after jogging, golfing etc in the hot weather complained of severe muscle pains.
I pointed out the obvious bio-chemistry, but such was her insistance that “salt is bad” I had to find a compromise, whether you love it or hate it:
marmite
Worked a treat.
There’s not enough piano wire and lamp posts for these chicken licken authoritarian dictator scum…
Agree with most of that. I use butter, add salt in cooking, and do various other things that would have the medical profession up in arms – eggs runny, yes, piles of red meat & rare, definitely.
However personally I prefer semi-skimmed these days. Put full fat in tea and it tastes wrong to me – in the same way that putting cream in tea does, though just not quite as bad. But then I take very little milk in tea anyway – it’s just waved near the cup.
Agree on skimmed though – definitely too watery.
There is a recognised phenomenon, ‘white coat syndrome’ or ‘white coat hypertension’, whereby, when your blood pressure is taken in a medical setting the reading is significantly higher than its ordinary level due to the stress of the medical setting (something I have recent experience of with my mother and the medical profession). Could it be that doctors take blood pressure, find artifically high numbers and leap from that to the salt hypothesis, without considering their own existence as being of greater import in producing that 186/98? Surely not.
Some of the responses to the article are more heart warming:
Niels A. Graudal, Senior consultant, Gesche Jyrgens, Copenhagen University Hospital
Salt is one of the cornerstones on which the mammalian biochemical structure is built. Total exclusion of salt from the diet leads to death. Still, salt is considered by some to be toxic on a level comparable with tobacco. In the analysis of “policy options to reduce salt intake” Cappucio et al. (1) support this view and state that the question is not whether to reduce salt intake, but how to do it. Considering the long- lasting controversies in the science of sodium reduction (2-4), the certainty of this statement is remarkable.
And
Robert A. Da Prato, Physician,
Military Entrance Process Station, Portland OR 97220
It remains remarkable to me that the anti-salt medical faction ignores or is intolerant of the obvious evidence that certain Asian populations (Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans, for example) have a sodium intake far in excess of the average Westerner, have normal/low blood pressure, and live longer.
Yes, I read those responses. At last someone is refusing to swallow this con at face value. The more qualified people speak out openly, hopefully the more ordinary folk will stop blindly following government guidelines and damaging their health into the bargain.
When I was a kid, Heinz Baked Beans and Spaghetti Hoops were a lunchtime favourite. As they are with my onw children. I prepared some Hoops for my daughter recently and wondered if they still tasted the same. They don’t. They taste disgusting. There’s no fricking salt in the Hoops or Baked Beans any more – so I added a generous pinch. Hey presto – Hoops just like mum used to make (from the tim)
You are absolutely correct on this one, luckily in italy here they are significantly less anally retentive than the UK in this issue, mainly because nearly everybody cares a lot about what they eat and how it is cooked.
Mind you I confess I switched to semi skimmed years back, and I like it well enough.