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The salt sellers
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by: Guest
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The immediate problem for anyone who wants to act on these results is that if you base your diet on processed food, you aren't really in charge of your salt intake. Ninety per cent of the salt we eat comes in familiar processed foods, only 10% comes from the salt on the table or beside the cooker.
Many time-poor, cash-rich Britons have largely given up cooking from scratch, and the foods on which we most rely - ready meals, sandwiches, breakfast cereals, prepared soups, cottonwool bread, crisps - come with hefty doses of salt. No wonder the average British adult
Refined white salt occupies number one position in the food industry's armoury of additives. Without it, everything from cornflakes to crackers would taste of zilch. Salt disguises the dullness of commodity ingredients like white flour and intensively-reared chicken. It replaces the natural intrinsic flavours in fresh foods that are destroyed by industrial food-processing methods. It corrupts our palates and sets up an expectation that every mouthful of savoury food must deliver a mouth-mugging dose of sodium.
I avoid processed convenience food and base my diet around whole, raw, unprocessed ingredients, which I cook myself. I buy good-quality sea salt which has a slightly lower level of sodium and some useful trace elements like iodine, iron, zinc and potassium; and I never stint on salty ingredients such as olives, anchovies and blue cheese if the recipe calls for it. I'm told that my blood pressure is spot-on. On the odd occasion that I have to settle for ready-made soup or a train station prawn sandwich, within the hour, my body has gone into revolt. I am left choking with thirst.
It acts as a handy reminder of what I am not missing.
Quite right aquilla. What the hell kind of wretched creatures are we that we can no longer take responsibility for what we choose to eat? I saw something on TV a while back where the CEO of one of these processed-food companies was boasting about the qualities of his product, and the chief quality turned out to be that 'it is safe'. Tasteless, horrid, synthetic muck, but not actually poisonous. There's no need to be fanatical about salt, sugar, carbs or anything else, just grow up, buy decent ingredients, cook it yourself, eat well. You'll never go back.
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I buy good-quality sea salt which has a slightly lower level of sodium ''
Go on. Explain how the level of sodium can vary in salt. I realise that selling nonsense to gullible arts graduates is an enjoyable sport, but salt, by definition, contains one Na+ and one Cl- ion. Sure, it may be that the packet contains a load of contaminants (sorry, ``useful trace elements'') but (a) they're not salt and (b) they're at miniscule levels. Convincing yourself that Seasalt is somehow healthier than any other sort is like people who think brown sugar isn't as bad as white sugar.
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Not another panic.
Your body decides how much salt it needs. It keeps enough and excretes the excess in the urine. The only people who benefit from salt reduction in terms of a reduced chance of heart or circulatory problems are those who already suffer from hypertension and, randomised or not, this trial does not establish that the dietary salt reduction was the decisive factor in these cases.
Moral : don't buy processed food.
Next.
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Time-poor, cash-rich Britons"? Oh how I feel for them. Has it never occured to anyone to make enough food for several meals at a time and then freeze some of them for days when you don't have time to cook? As for the cash-rich Britons, maybe they should just employ cooks. Personally I'd much rather make a curry than buy a frozen one. But then I'm both time-poor and cash-poor. If you're stupid enough to live on processed food then what can you expect except obesity and heart attacks. Why should the food industry cut down on salt, e-numbers etc., it's all about personal choice, everyone can read what's in a product.
p.s. has anyone else noticed that since they took the e-numbers out of smarties they're not nearly as tasty?
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Salt disguises the dullness of commodity ingredients like white flour and intensively-reared chicken. It replaces the natural intrinsic flavours in fresh foods that are destroyed by industrial food-processing methods......
I never stint on salty ingredients such as olives, anchovies and blue cheese if the recipe calls for it.
Other industrial foods
pepperoni
stilton
gorgonzola
prosciutto
caviar
kippered herring......
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Just before reading this article, I ate a *ready meal*- a Marks & Spencer Ham & Mushroom Tagliatelle. Looking at the small print on the packet, I now see that I have just consumed 2.64g of salt, which according to the labelling system is 44% of the *guideline daily amount*. The small print also tells me that the meal contained 460 calories, which is only 23% of the *guideline daily amount*.
So if I were to get my daily requirement of calories from this kind of food (and, no doubt, all too often I do) I would be consuming about 4/5ths more salt than is recommended.
Why did I eat the unhealthy *ready meal*? I work full-time, with 2+ hours commuting time on top, & am otherwise very busy - like millions of other people. Also, the meal was quite cheap (at least, compared to the other stuff on the shelves at the M&S store which is on my way home from work.)
To the posters who have come in to attack Ms Blythman or minimise the impact of her article- you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Heart disease & stroke cause hundreds of thousands of deaths & disabilities every year. A writer exposes the responsibility of the food industry for some of this and also talks about the ways that she tries to create a healthy & tasty food intake for herself, and all you can do is try to undermine her.
Yes, she is naieve about sea salt, which only contains 2% less sodium. This is beside the main point.
Has nobody close to you died or become disabled through heart disease or a stroke? Perhaps not, in which case you are fortunate- but do you think that your duty is therefore to denigrate somebody who is trying to raise our consciousness of the issue?
HowSoonIsNow- your post is bizarre. You claim that *The only people who benefit from salt reduction in terms of a reduced chance of heart or circulatory problems are those who already suffer from hypertension*. Yet the recent scientific study, as reported here:
Go on. Explain how the level of sodium can vary in salt."
I think you have misunderstood. Sea salt has a slightly lower level of sodium chloride. It's fairly obvious that is what she meant unless you are being obtuse.
"Convincing yourself that Seasalt is somehow healthier than any other sort is like people who think brown sugar isn't as bad as white sugar."
Yet sea salt is preferred by many chefs and brown sugar does taste different to white sugar. Go figure, as they say. Perhaps there are more things in heaven and earth ...
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Pquod
So someone has to write an article on CiF before you consider taking care of yourself. Have you not thought of thinking for yourself or do you have to be led by the nose and have everything spelt out for you?
"I work full-time, with 2+ hours commuting time on top, & am otherwise very busy - like millions of other people."
Perhaps you should reconsider your lifestyle choices as your salt intake seems the least of your worries.
"Also, the meal was quite cheap (at least, compared to the other stuff on the shelves at the M&S store which is on my way home from work.)"
So few words so much information.
"To the posters who have come in to attack Ms Blythman or minimise the impact of her article- you should be ashamed of yourselves."
Why exactly? It is not rocket science that processed food is not a healthy option.
"Heart disease & stroke cause hundreds of thousands of deaths & disabilities every year. A writer exposes the responsibility of the food industry for some of this and also talks about the ways that she tries to create a healthy & tasty food intake for herself, and all you can do is try to undermine her."
She also promotes adding salt to food.
"Has nobody close to you died or become disabled through heart disease or a stroke? Perhaps not, in which case you are fortunate- but do you think that your duty is therefore to denigrate somebody who is trying to raise our consciousness of the issue?"
And your excuse for being ignorant of M&S ready meal salt content was what exactly if you are so aware of this?
"HowSoonIsNow- your post is bizarre."
Hmm the Pot hasn't been taking its medication I see.
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Lacanian
Comment No. 540523
April 20 16:44
GBR Cutting out salt doesn't save lives. It reduces the *risk* of heart attack. There is a huge difference.
Too true Lacanian - no ones life is 'saved' by life style changes - their deaths are just delayed. There was an anti-smoking advertisment that said if you did not give up smoking you would need an undertaker! Not that you may need on sooner, but that you would need one. Smokers are the only ones who die?
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Additional information:
The salt sellers: from commentisfree.guardian.co.uk
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