Two facts to bust the sodium myth by Dr Jonathan Wright In a recent New York Times article, a professor of paediatrics almost gets his facts right about sodium... Almost. He points out that its in our human nature to go to extremes. And hes right. Weve seen how too little sodium can be a disaster, while way too much sodium is a disaster of a different kind. What hes talking about is balance. But he completely misses two indispensable points: 1. The key that opens the door to that balance, and 2. The powerful force that can slam the door shut and knock the balance out of whack. The key is potassium. Sodium runs amok without potassium. If youre getting sufficient potassium from common foods like spinach, salmon, avocados, mushrooms, and bananas, then youll be fine. Go ahead and salt your food. Dont go crazy, but dont avoid the salt shaker. You NEED that salt. Then once you have sodium balanced with potassium, take one more step: Cut out the junk sodium. Junk sodium is everywhere in processed foods. Take MSG. Im sure you know that the S stands for sodium. And from what you know of MSG, you can probably guess that its the Tasmanian Devil of junk sodium. What you might not know is that food producers are allowed to give MSG all kinds of misleading names, such as corn starch and yeast extract. Well over 90 per cent of processed foods contain MSG. But most people have no idea its there, because MSG appears on so many labels under a coded name... like a poisonous special agent. Thats because those code names are there for just one reason: to deceive you. Other forms of harmful sodium include sodium benzoate (a preservative) and sodium nitrate (common in processed meats). So right away you can see why junk sodium intake is so high in our western diet. Its hidden everywhere. Take that junk away, add potassium-rich foods, and millions will find its suddenly FAR easier to manage blood pressure.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:53:29 +0000
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