Thursday, February 11, 2016

TO SALT OR NOT TO SALT? THAT'S REALLY A QUESTION


Way back in prehistoric times our ancestors consumed 604 mg of sodium per day. Today, we Americans consume 3,400 mg per day. As you can tell these numbers are way out of alignment.  Now if you can cut your salt consumption down to 2,400 mg a day, you'll help keep yourself from having high blood pressure and reduce the risk of getting cataracts. If you can cut back to 1,500 mg a day, you may be able to cut back on, or even stop taking blood pressure medication.

 Even people with healthy blood pressure need to cut back because a recent study published in Hypertension found that 25% of the people with healthy blood pressure are sodium sensitive and run the same risk of death as those with high blood pressure.

The key to cutting back on salt is going to come from reading labels since 75% of the salt in your diet comes from processed foods. Attempt to eat foods with less than 200 mg of sodium per serving and avoid any foods with more than 800 mg per serving.

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