Salt redux

If you haven't read the multi-part special feature on salt in the Globe and Mail, have a look. The series was first published during the summer, but is still available on their website and well worth examining.

In case we need reminding, Canadians consume on average twice the amount of salt required for a healthy diet. While we've become obsessed with monitoring our fat and sugar intake, we continue to scarf down 3,092 mg of sodium daily. Low fat and "healthy" choice prepared foods such as President's Choice Blue Menu products have up to 600 mg of sodium per serving, almost half-way to the 1,500 mg per day quota for optimal health. A diet high in sodium is particularly detrimental to individuals who have high blood pressure or are prone to hypertension. (Watch this narrated video diagram on how salt affects your body.) Clearly, if consumers were as attentive to the negative health impact of salt as they are to the effects of sugar and fat on their waistlines, manufacturers would be forced to redefine what constitutes a "healthy" choice.

The Globe feature includes a number of interesting articles. Who knew, for instance, that you can limit your salt intake by seasoning your food at the end of preparation rather than at the beginning? Apparently, we require less salt to taste when we salt previously unsalted food at the table verses food prepared with salt. Also amusing is Dave McGinn's The Sodium Diaries, a daily blog devoted to his efforts to stick to the 1,500 mg per day quota, which he fails miserably. I guess no one pointed out that if you want to stick to the daily limit, you can kiss eating prepared foods goodbye: everything from instant oatmeal to canned tuna, our ideas of "healthy" choices, contain heaps of salt.

The bottom line, as always, is that healthy living requires commitment and forethought. All we can hope for is that over time, our governments will consider excessive salt intake a national health crisis, as it did with smoking in the 1980's, and will throw its weight behind the awareness campaigns, incentives and bans this issue deserves.