Why eat less salt?

You need only one teaspoon of salt during the course of an entire day, from everything that you consume. So if you are snacking on crisps and pretzels or eating a lot of cured meats, your salt intake will most likely be a lot higher than it should be.

Why should you eat less salt?

Firstly, a high salt intake is linked to high blood pressure, which means that your heart has to work harder to pump the blood around your body. Secondly, a higher blood pressure increases your risk of stroke, heart attack and cancer.

How can you lower your risk?

It’s possible to lower your risk by making smart decisions on salt when buying and preparing food, such as:

• • Do not add salt when cooking your food; it really isn’t necessary all the time. Rather learn to rely on herbs and spices for flavour

• • Taste the food before adding salt to it at the table. The meal may be quite salty already if it has something like bacon in it, so automatically adding salt at the table would increase your intake unnecessarily

• • Opt for foods that are labelled as having a reduced salt content

• • Thoroughly rinse tinned foods before eating them as they are often stored in brine, which is a salt water mixture

• • Become product smart. Cut down on your intake of high-salt products such as salted nuts and crackers, salted popcorn, salted butter, ready-made meals, heavily processed foods and fast foods, cured meats, foods like feta which are stored in brine and stock cubes, gravy powders and soup powders. If you are cooking with these, do not add more salt to your food as your meal will already be pretty salty.

Make eating less salt a part of your healthy eating journey and healthy lifestyle. It takes a while to get used to new and altered flavour profiles, so gradually decrease your salt intake with every meal. You’ll find that as your foods become fresher and you rely on more whole, unprocessed ingredients, your craving for salt will decrease.

 

Sources
www.webmd.com
www.heartfoundation.co.za