Hidden Salt

Kate · Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:46 pm Post subject: Hidden Salt

Ok people, here's another point in my cook at home and have family meals stand. I have high blood pressure and I cook at home every day. The last time I had fast food it made me sick. Occasionally my daughter and I eat out at a nice restaurant. We figure the money we save by not eating fast food pays for those meals. I like to make homemade things, baked goods, breads etc. That way I know what goes into my food. I know you say you don't have time, with some pre planning I managed a home cooked meal every night while working full time and caring for a family. Get your family involved, have prep day where you wash and cut veggies, make menu's etc.

Hidden salt — 470 mg in a Starbucks bran muffin — is the next big health issue and here's the long list of reasons why.
By Sally Kuzemchak, RD, Prevention magazine

Your salad dressing has a dirty little secret. (Your bran muffin and ham sandwich are in on it, too.) 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 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. Our national "salt tooth" is so bad that the American Medical Association recently asked the FDA to remove sodium from its list of food additives generally recognized as safe.

That's right. Saccharin can stay, but sodium's got to go. Call it the physicians' preemptive strike. "There's no way to tell which chronic health problems will result after years and years of a high-salt diet," explains Stephen Havas, MD, vice president of science, quality, and public health for the AMA. "We'd rather people not be put at risk at all."

Problem is, the stuff is everywhere. It's crammed into cheese slices and canned vegetables and sprinkled into cinnamon-raisin bagels and sandwich bread. You can consume a day's worth of the mineral with an order of mu shu pork with rice from your local Chinese restaurant, according to an analysis by the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest, in Washington, DC. As much as 80% of the sodium we get every day comes from these processed and prepared foods—not the salt shaker.

It's true that the occasional sodium-filled microwave dinner or slice of double-cheese pizza is nothing to call the EMTs about, especially if you're generally healthy. But as the number of made-from-scratch, at-home meals we consume has dwindled, we've all unwittingly become sodium junkies.

The most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that healthy adults get no more than 2,300 mg of sodium a day, the amount in about a teaspoon of salt. (If you are over age 50, are African American, or already have high blood pressure, your limit should be 1,500 mg.) Still, most of us scarf down close to 4,000 mg by day's end, according to the latest government surveys. But my blood pressure is normal, you're thinking. Great. However, a high sodium intake affects far more than that. Take your bones. In a 2-year study of postmenopausal women, researchers found that the higher a woman's sodium intake, the greater her bone loss at the hip.

There's also evidence to suggest that high-sodium diets may up the risk of gastric cancer. And in a small study from Colorado State University, a high-salt diet (more than 5,000 mg per day) worsened lung function in people with exercise-induced asthma, which occurs in as many as 90% of asthmatics. A low-salt diet improved it.
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Life's short...eat dessert first.

kerismummy · Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:12 pm Post subject:

The Queen in England has had plenty of hip replacements, maybe thats why!!!

I agree, peolple should take more care of what they're eating. If you spend a little bit of time at the weekends preparing meal for the week and freezing them, you can have a healthy nutritious meal every night of the week. I'm terrible for not eating properly, im up at 5.30am, get myself ready for work, get Keri up, breakfast and dressed, then i take her to the child minders and go to work. By the time im home, its 5.30pm and im totally knackered. The last thing i want to do is cook. I rely on meals i cook at the weekend and freeze, so all i have to do is defrost and re heat them. Except for tonight, tonight i had oatmeal! The kids meals i posted can easily be doubled to make enough for an adult, and they are pretty quick, even if you dont feel like making them at the weekend and re heating them.
Fast food can be terrible, but i heard a rumour that Pizza Hut is the best of the bad foods. Not sure how true that is? Could be a complete crock, as i worked at Pizza Hut when i heard it! Apparently it has the least fat and salt of all the fast foods. Having worked there, all i would say about it is "don't eat the salad!!" It's always days old, and the big pots they stay in on the salad cart are never washed properly! Gross!
Any way, i always seem to go off on a tangent when i chat so i think that better be it from me!!

Kate · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:34 am Post subject:

Paula you sure have a heck of a day girl. Hey oatmeal is not a bad dinner, I do that every once in awhile. Erica loves junk food but that is no longer a big part of her life. Tonight though we had pizza delivered as I was sick today. I've worked behind the scenes in some of those places so I too know where to stay away from. But your right, cook on the weekends and eat healthy the rest of the week.I'm going to try you Kids Chicken Pie, it sounds delish and I think Erica would love it.
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Life's short...eat dessert first.

guido · Site Admin Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 390 Location: Italy

I think a good dish of pasta it's still the easiest way to prepare a meal in no time.
Ten minutes for pasta and same time to prepare a tomato sauce with oil, parsley, and a bit of red hot chilli pepper. Yum!
If you can find Barilla pesto sauce, it's wonderful and you do not even have to do anything for the sauce.
Pesto from Barilla is probably the only sauce in jar that you can compare to the home made one.
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In vino veritas!

kerismummy · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:09 pm Post subject:

Barilla? I've not heard of that before. I'll havr to have a look on Saturday when i go shopping. We have Bertolli here, which is the main one which boasts to be Italian, or Dolmio which is pretty much the same. Ragu do a white lasagne sauce and a red tomato pasta sauce. The Kids chicken pie is lovely, i was nicking bits of Keri's while i was plating the meal up!

Kate · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:45 am Post subject:

I can't find Barilla Pesto sauce here, though we have their other sauces and they are very good. I normally hate sauce in a jar or can. I always bring back Barilla pesto when I visit Guido and he brings it with him also. I don't make pesto that good!
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Life's short...eat dessert first.

kerismummy · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:51 pm Post subject:

im not that keen on sauces in jars, but when i was at uni i used to use them all the time because i was always too busy studying or partying to cook properly! Now i make my own, and they dont taste bitter like the sauces in jars did. I've never tried to make pesto tho, think iv only even tried it once. Wasn't that keen on it.

Kate · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:51 pm Post subject:

I'm not either, but the Barilla sauces are my favorite when I do use one. I love pesto, it's wonderful on a pannini with chicken and mozzerella.
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Life's short...eat dessert first.