Did you know that salt has always been important to human life on this planet, and that the word “salary” comes from the word “sal” because Romans were paid in salt.
Well, yes – African and European explorers traded an ounce of salt for an ounce of gold—salt was literally worth its weight in gold. Now often referred to as “the single most harmful substance in the food supply”, salt has been the subject of controversy in recent years, and has increasingly been blamed for a number of poor health outcomes, such as high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. But is salt really as dangerous as we have been led to believe? see these facts and myths compiled by SML Media about salt….
1 – More than 80 percent of the salt most people consume is from processed foods. Indeed, there is far too much sodium in processed foods. Sodium is just one of many ingredients in packaged foods that will adversely affect your health. The salt added to these convenience foods is mostly sodium—as opposed to natural salt, which is much lower in sodium.
2 – However, health problems may increases significantly if your sodium is too low, a condition known as hyponatremia. Sodium is an electrolyte responsible for many critical biological processes, including regulating the amount of water that’s in and around your cells, so if your blood becomes too low in sodium, your body’s fluid levels rise and your cells begin to swell. This swelling can cause a number of health problems, from mild to severe.
3 – People always say salt is the primary cause of high blood pressure, but the fact is too much salt can cause cause blood pressure rises in people who are already prone to hypertension (high blood pressure).
4 – For those people who have completely stayed off salt because they have been told that salt is dangerous and that their body doesn’t need salt every day, well your body needs 200 mg of salt per day to be healthy.
5 – Even foods that you might not think of as salty can greatly contribute to your daily sodium intake. For example, a typical serving of whole wheat bread has 132 mg of sodium and the average oat-bran bagel contains 532 mg of sodium.
