Salt Content In Food

Toss Food Properly By Salt

Your salad dressing has a dirty little secret. So do your savories and cheese sandwiches. These foods—and indeed, nearly everything you might eat in a day—are loaded with a mineral that some experts fear may be slowly killing you. It’s salt

sodium and even if you don’t have high blood pressure, you need to start thinking about it.

We know what you’re thinking: Yawn. Well, wake up. ‘Salt tooth’ is universally so unhealthy a phenomenon that the American Medical Association asked the Food and Drug Administration to remove sodium from its list of food additives generally recognized as safe. Call it the physicians’ pre-emptive strike.

Salt can be hidden under various sodium derivatives such as:

• Baking powder and baking soda

• Brine, monosodium glutamate

• Sodium citrate and sodium pyrophosphate

• Sodium erythorbate

• Diso diumphosphate

• Sodium saccharin

If you find any of these mentioned on labels of packaged foods, you can be sure you salt

are taking in loads of extra salt. It’s true that the occasional sodium filled dinner or slice of double-cheese pizza is nothing to call the doctor about, especially if you’re generally healthy. But as the number of made from-scratch, at-home meals we consume keeps dwindling, we’ve all unwittingly become sodium junkies.

Not surprising, considering most of our packaged food items and snacks have stealth salt. Also, many of us have moved from using freshly ground masalas to curry pastes and flavoring in our cooking. Add to that all the ready-to-eat convenience foods in neat packages that we pick up ever so often. Heaps of salt are hidden in all of this. But my blood pressure is normal, you’re thinking. Great. However, a high sodium intake affects far more than that.

More research is needed in all these areas, but sodium’s role in hypertension is well documented. The mineral triggers your body to conserve fluid; that causes blood volume to swell; straining your heart, whose job it is to push blood through the circulatory system. Over time, weakened vessels and an overworked heart become prime targets for strokes and heart attacks. Sodium has a greater effect on certain people who are ‘salt sensitive’— those whose blood pressure ping-pongs in response to high or low sodium intake.

Put it this way: From a public health perspective, we don’t know who’ll get into a car accident, but we tell everyone to wear their seat belts. If you can feel your blood pressure rising just from reading all of this, relax: There are easy ways to shake your salt habit without completely overhauling your diet.

At The Store

Choose fresh first Buy foods in their most natural forms whenever you can. For instance, pick raw almonds instead of salted ones. Avoid picking cured foods, foods packed in brine, condiments.

Most food labels don't mention salt but refer to sodium instead. Since 1 gram of sodium is equal to 2.55 gram of salt, multiply the amount of sodium given on the label by 2.5 to work out the amount of salt in the food you are buying. Many foods have huge ranges of sodium, brand for brand, so choose the one with the lowest amount you can find.

In the Kitchen

• Begin with reducing the quantity of salt that you add to your food, when cooking. salt

With packaged foods, be stingy: When a food product comes with a seasoning or sauce packet, use only half (or less); most of it is salt. You don't need to put an entire packet of seasoning when preparing instant noodles for your child. Gradually reduce the quantity so that he does not notice the difference.

• Stretch it if you love rice and pasta mixes, toss in naturally low-sodium foods such as steamed fresh vegetables, cottage cheese or grilled chicken. Dilute your canned soup with milk. You'll increase the total volume of food, spreading out the sodium over more servings.

• Drain, rinse, repeat, if you are using canned vegetables. They are literally swimming in salt water (salt is a preservative).

• Replace salt with herbs and other condiments. Take a mint salad. Dry mint leaves, crush them and flavor your salad with it instead of salt. Alternative flavors are coriander, lemon juice; oregano and raw mango (try mint chutney with raw mango instead of salt). Squeeze lemon juice and sprinkle pepper on your salads.

At the table

You don't really need a salt shaker. Stow it away. Instead, place herbs and spices. Do not pair two highly salted snacks.

When dining out, choose foods without sauces, or ask for the sauce or dressing to be served on the side. Eat your food slowly so that your taste buds can savor the salt for a longer duration.