Anthony Daniels, the physician, wrote an interesting article om salt over at Pajama’s Media under his oddly chosen pseudonym of Theodore Dalrymple. He quotes a Journal of the American Medical Association study that throws the whole “salt is bad for you” mantra into serious doubt. The study indicated that, while people with high sodium intake had an increased likelihood of cardiovascular disease, the very same was found to be true of people with very low sodium intakes. Now, we are back to the Goldilocks syndrome – everything must be just right.
Actually, it’s no surprise, since salt has been an essential part of the human diet from, well, the beginning. The anti-salt brigade will say, “Sure, but primitive people weren’t stuffed with process foods that are packed with ungodly amounts of salt.”
That’s true, but my advice still hold here. Avoid processed foods.
Dr. Daniels questions the deprivation we experience by not eating foods we like is really balanced by the theoretical extension of life. (And it is all theory and numbers – we don’t know that it will make a lick of difference in the end. Unless your last moments are spent glaring down the approaching headlights of a tanker truck, and wishing that you’d had a few more cheeseburgers when you wanted, you’ll never know whether your diet gave you so much as an extra day.)
The thing is, depriving yourself of processed foods is not deprivation at all. They are, by and large, crap that we have been trained to like.
I have a dachshund (named Sam) that never fails to nibble on any piece of leftover poop he sees when out walking. It’s highly embarrassing, not to mention disgusting. I seriously doubt he sees much difference between his healthy dog food and a fresh discovery of poop. He might even prefer the poop as far as I know.
And millions of people in advanced Western nations, particularly the USA, are not much different from Sam. Except that, rather than getting their crap for free off the street, they pay inflated prices for it – much more than it would usually cost to make a better dinner from scratch. And like Sam, all these people like their crap.
Hey, me too. I eat a Big Mac every now and then. But, I have noticed that it’s slightly addictive. If I haven’t indulged in a while, I eat one and wonder why I missed it at all. But, the next day I have a desire to eat another. And another. They start to taste better the more I eat them. That’s the miracle of junk food.
So, just don’t eat it. Salt problem solved, without consciously cutting back on salt.
Meanwhile, in a nation whose cuisine is practically defined by sodium, Yoshiaki Murakami has written a book saying that the sodium and high blood pressure link is mostly rubbish based on a couple small and inconclusive studies. He enlists numerous Japanese scientists to say that salt is not the health demon it is so often portrayed as being. The long Japanese life expectancy would seem to bolster their arguments.
So, I say enjoy your salt. As long as you know you’re eating it and it’s just being consumed as a hidden preservative in crap.
In moderation, as always.
