Reprogramming your taste buds

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Why the Government Is Measuring Your Salt Intake

Did you know that only 11 percent of the sodium in our diet comes from salt we shake onto our food, either before eating or while cooking? It’s true. Most of the salt in our diet —roughly 77 percent—is added at the factory in the prepared and processed foods we eat.

What does that mean? If you never pick up a salt shaker, you will still get way more than your recommended daily amount of sodium, just from the packaged foods you eat. And the more salt you eat, the more your taste buds come to rely on it for flavor.

Switch from a high-salt diet to a more natural diet, and yes, foods will initially taste blander. So you crave more salt—at the expense of your health.

That’s why the federal government has recently rolled out an unprecedented proposal to lower Americans’ sodium consumption by 20 percent. It’s called the National Salt Reduction Initiative, and it could help save your life.

Most doctors recommend the average healthy adult consume between 1,500 and 2,400 milligrams of sodium a day. People with diabetes need to aim for the low end of that range—between 1,500 and 1,800 mg—or about a teaspoon. Why the restraint? When used to excess, salt is particularly dangerous for people with diabetes, since they are more prone to diseases of the circulatory system. Salt is strongly linked to high blood pressure, which can lead to kidney disease, heart disease and stroke.

Yet Americans typically eat about 4,000 mg of sodium per day. That’s nearly double what we should eat. A recent study by Stanford University found that if we simply reduced the country’s salt intake by 10 percent, it would prevent half a million strokes and heart attacks a year—and save more than $32 billion in national medical costs!

That’s why the government has stepped in. The National Salt Reduction Initiative is working with food companies and restaurants, educating them on the dangers of sodium, and asking them to voluntarily commit to reducing salt in their products. So far, sixteen companies, including H.J. Heinz Co., Kraft Foods Inc. and Starbucks, plan to cut the amount of sodium in their food. Subway has cut their sodium levels by almost 30 percent in their European stores and plans to cut them here in the U.S., too.

The Initiative’s goal is to cut the amount of salt in over 60 types of packaged food and 25 categories of restaurant food by 25 percent over the next five years. But don’t rely on the government or food manufacturers to solve the salt problem for you. Reprogramming your taste buds to want less salt is hard, but it’s worth doing. Remember: We’ve been trained to desire salt in our foods. Eat natural, fresh foods, and use herbs and spices well, and you will go a long way toward reducing your sodium intake, with no sacrifice at all in flavor.

Taken from 'Reverse Diabetes newsletter'