December 29, 2012: Jacobson – “A Salty Minefield for Parents”

A recent Huffington Post article by Michael F. Jacobson (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-f-jacobson/kids-health-sodium_b_2270819.html), focuses on the reasons parents should be very concerned about salty foods in their children’s diets. A big reason that parents, especially of young children, should be concerned is that many adults’ food preferences are shaped in childhood. “Food manufacturers and restaurants are ensuring that many children of today will be the hypertensive adults of tomorrow by loading up popular foods, such as macaroni and cheese, chicken noodle soup, and hot dogs, marketed to children, with unconscionably high levels of salt and other sodium-containing additives”.

Reducing the salt content in kids’ foods would help train their taste buds to enjoy less-salty foods in childhood and in the future as adults. Too much sodium can boost the blood pressure of even little children, which puts them on the road to high blood pressure and an increased risk of stroke and heart disease.

In recent study by the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/salt/pdfs/Sodium_Pediatrics_Highlights.pdf) researchers found that kids are consuming 3,400 milligrams (mg) of sodium daily — about twice the recommended limits (1,200 mg is recommended for 4- to 8-year-olds and 1,500 mg for 9- to 13-year-olds).

WHAT YOU CAN DO: To lower your child’s sodium intake, the most important thing is to limit processed and restaurant foods. Only about 11 percent of our salt comes from the shaker; the vast majority is ADDED into chicken nuggets, Lunchables, Hot Pockets, and other processed foods.

Check out the cool slideshow that the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) posted at the end of the online article that gives detailed information about the sodium content in common foods that kids eat: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-f-jacobson/kids-health-sodium_b_2270819.html

December 29, 2012: NPR: The Paradox And Mystery Of Our Taste For Salt

NPR recently had an interesting news story about our taste for salt; I urge you to check it out at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/12/20/167619010/the-paradox-and-mystery-of-our-taste-for-salt

The part of the story that grabbed my attentions is that Gary Beauchamp, director of the Monell Center, says the first evidence for people adapting to the taste of a lower-sodium diet came from stories told by doctors who ordered patients with high blood pressure to switch to a low-sodium diet. Their patients reported that “it was awful at first, but after a while, it wasn’t so bad,” Beauchamp says. Their taste sensors seemed to adapt, a little bit the way our eyes adapt to a dark room. In fact, Beauchamp says, after they did that for a while, “when they went back to their normal food, it was too salty.” This has been my experience as well in talking with many people over the years who have successfully lowered their dietary sodium intake. According to the news story, Beauchamp decided to carry out a more carefully monitored experiment to study this(http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/36/6/1134.short) . He put people on a controlled, low-sodium diet, and they did adapt. “In about four to eight weeks, the amount of salt that they found optimal in soup or crackers declined by 40 or 50 percent.” It seems to show that we can get used to foods with less salt in it.

And this means that we all could be healthier, eat less sodium, and still enjoy our food! Which is good news for everyone.