Avalanche! Run For Your Life!

Crunchy popcorn, crispy chips, smooth cheese, tart pickles, all share one thing in common:  salt.  Salt is everywhere. In snacks, desserts, many supposedly ‘healthy’ foods, even butter. Salt is not your friend.  Salt is very much like a theif.  It is robbing you while you look on.  Salt is masking and yes, destroying genuine flavors of most foods.  Salt is also more than likely affecting your health because it causes fluids to build up in your body, raises blood pressure, and often casues that puffy look you would rather not see when you look in the mirror.  Childen are not born craving salt.  Salt is an acquired taste, an acquired habit.  Minor amounts of salt, or sodium, are present in nearly all foods when in their natural state.  Seventy-five percent of the salt Americans consume is from processed food, not unprocessed, fresh, food.  Most canned foods have a great deal of sodium. Salt is used for flavor, as a preservative, and to enhance a food’s appearance and texture.  Salt is an essential nutrient in a person’s diet, but so very little is needed.  The American Heart Association reccomends people consume less than 1500 milligrams of salt per day.  A teaspoon of salt has about 2300 milligrams of sodium.  A simple 3.5 ounce dill pickle has 1428 milligrams of salt!  That healthy popcorn you eat cooked in a ‘little’ bit of canola oil and lightly salted usually has about 1900 milligrams of sodium in a 4-ounce serving.  Limiting your salt intake when doing your own cooking is one thing, but limiting salt when dining out is difficult especially if you eat fast food, which is often not a great nutritional choice.  Be careful where you eat when eating out and ask for a nutritional guide more and more restaurants provide, or get online and check ahead.  Take control of your salt intake. It won’t be easy, but the rewards are great. Dial down your built-in salt meter.  Food will develop deeper flavors.  You will help your body by eating healthier with less salt.  Substitute salt by increasing other spices or herbs. Ground ginger and mustard enhance many dishes.  Lemon juice works great on meats and fish, even pasta when wanting to decrease salt.  Though hard to do at the start, once you kick the salt habit you will notice how salty foods taste you once ate without a thought about salt.  Be kind to yourself and toss that salt shaker that sits near your table.  Think before you add salt to your foods, during cooking and after.  Be patient in your battle to kick the salt habit, but you can and should do it.