High Sodium Diets not good for your health

There is a short but interesting article in the personal liberty digest that talks about a study that shows that high sodium diets increase blood pressure.

High salt consumption has long been linked to cardiovascular disease, but it is only now that scientists are learning about some of the mechanisms behind the phenomenon. An international group of researchers from Germany, Austria and Finland has discovered that under normal physiological conditions excess salt is accumulated in a "storage area" within the skin. The study provides yet another piece of evidence of why low-sodium diets are better for long term health.

It seems we already know this but what are we to do about it?  Trying to avoid high salt foods in your daily life is no easy things.  Personally I find it extremely difficult.  It requires a lot of label reading in your grocery store and a careful measuring of portion sizes in your daily diet.

Even some of those low sodium canned soups contain relatively high amounts of salt.  Pickles in a jar? TONS of salt. V-8 tomato juice? TONS of salt.  Lots of processed foods contain high sodium as well as canned foods.  Why? Well of course because salt acts as a preservative and also adds significantly to the flavor of food.

If you like to eat out a lot, chances are you are getting very high amounts of salt in most prepared dishes you find at your favorite restaurant.  And of course this is done to enhance flavor – they want you to come back again and again.  And of course they want you to order extra drinks (because of the salty food which makes you thirsty) as they are some of the highest profit products a restaurant can sell.

What doesn’t contain salt? Hmmm. Well you have fruits and vegetables for starters that are not canned, and we are supposed to eat 12 servings of those per day anyway so that should help fill in a good part of your daily diet .

The University of California at San Francisco says that the average American eats 5 or more teaspoons of salt each day.  And goes on to say that this is 20 times as much as the body needs. Your body only needs on quarter of a teaspoon per day.

Incidentally they have some great guidelines on this page for a low sodium diet as well as popular low sodium alternatives to foods you might be eating during the week.