Americans eat too much salt, CDC says

Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:37pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - People in the United States consume more than twice the recommended amount of salt, raising their risk for high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, government health experts said on Thursday.

They found nearly 70 percent of U.S. adults are in high-risk groups that would benefit from a lower-salt diet of no more than 1,500 mg per day, yet most consume closer to 3,500 mg per day.

More at:
http://www.reuters.com/article...dUSTRE52P65820090326

quote:

Originally posted by SheriaVa:
...it would irritate me years ago when we first met and he and his SO would come over for dinner and he would pour a layer of salt over the entire plate w/o even tasting the food I made. GRRR!

Nothing irritates me more with food, especially when I am the cook, when someone dumps salt all over the meal before tasting it. I pride myself on my cooking and use a lot of fresh herbs, spices, etc. to enhance the flavor of foods. I use salt, but only if needed, and only a small amount and the food, in my opinion, is very flavorful. When my own SO dumps a ton of salt on a meal I have prepared, prior to tasting, just infuriates me. Partly because I've spent time making something tasty and healthy, and partly because of the negative health aspect of too much sodium. I feel all he tastes is salt. It drives me crazy. Ok, if something is bland and needs salt or pepper or other seasoning, fine. But at least taste it first. See if it tastes good. Don't smother your food in salt before you even know what the flavor is!!!! This is a problem I don't know how to tackle. I don't want to sound mean, yet, I want my SO to taste the REAL flavor of the foods we cook and I want him to be healthy.

Jill

Two of my DC-area friends were down in Reho last weekend and I went out to eat with them both Friday & Saturday night. On Saturday, we were at Outback and I don't remember how it came up, but I was teasing Danny--who is now a Type II diabetic--about how he used to be a salt-a-holic...it would irritate me years ago when we first met and he and his SO would come over for dinner and he would pour a layer of salt over the entire plate w/o even tasting the food I made. GRRR! Now at least he eats much healthier.

I think a big part of the salt consumption in the US is related to the fact that there is processed junk food and fast food on every corner. Many in this country aren't eating and cooking with fresh whole foods like they in other countries, or like many of us do on this site. So many families I know cook with a lot of boxed/packaged foods. Like those biscuit dinners where you just add chicken, or boxed mac-n-cheese, canned veggies which are usually higher in sodium. And the fact that these things are less expensive then buying fresh certainly does not help during this slow economy. On a rare occasion I do buy canned soups, mac-n-cheese, etc but I try very hard to avoid them. I can make a healthy, wholesome meal in about the same time, maybe a little more, that it takes me to make one of those boxed meals(I feel like the opening segment of Rachel Ray's 30 min meals). My friends SO had a stroke last week and so he had to go out and buy all low-sodium and fresh foods. So he was making himself breakfast and complaining about the Egg-Beaters and that they would be bland so my friend said why not add some fresh tomato, green pepper, some non-salt seasonings, etc and he loved it! There are so many other things that will add flavor to food instead of salt. My fiancee adds salt to everything and it makes me CRAZY! Even before he tastes something, in goes the salt. When he cooks something for others he's better with it, but a lot of stuff is still too salty and i have to remind him of that. I have replaced the salt in the salt shaker with 40% less sodium and I don't think he's figured that out yet. He's a work in progress, LOL!

Jill

PS: Sorry, I edited this post earlier and I deleted an entire sentence so it made NO sense!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jillybean,

A LOT of the chicken meat you see in the grocery stores now is brined...and sometimes you have to read the fine print to know it.

My best friends used a new brand of chicken some months back and raved about how juicy it was...I went to buy the same brand the next week and saw that there wasn't just chicken in those packages--there was salt. I let my friends know, because one of them, like me, has hypertension and should limit salt intake.

I only bought the individually-wrapped Perdue boneless chicken breasts once--when they were first introduced--and that is how I found out that they, too, have salt in them.

It pays to read the label carefully, even when you don't think you have to (i.e., because you think you're "just" buying chicken).

I wonder if the folks at "Cooks Illustrated" have figured this out yet.

At least in the past, they were obsessed with brining just about everything.

Duh!! ya think?

I don't think that is a big surprise to anyone here