What You Need to Know About Salt And How it Affects Your Health

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If you take care of your health like eating healthy food, exercise, but you’re not specifically focused on this issue, you can be sure that every day you put into your body too much salt! The only question now is whether this exaggeration is a minimum amount of salt or is your situation alarming?

But if you belong to those people who don’t have time to cook, often order from the catering services, eat fast food, sandwiches with ham, sausages and other meat products, or suffer from a chronic diseases of the modern age (this particularly applies to high blood pressure) then it’s time for a serious change in your diet.

The salt, according to the chemical composition, is sodium chloride, that means it consists of sodium and chlorine. These minerals in a very small quantities are necessary for our body, especially for regulating acids and binding the liquids and thereby preventing the blood coagulation.

However, the amount of salt necessary for our bodies to function properly, is already in the foods that we normally consume. If you reduce the salt you add when you’re cooking, there is almost no chance to go overboard in the opposite direction. If somehow just happens that rare condition – shortage of salt, you will quickly realize it by muscle spasms and general weakness. On the other hand, the excess salt can not be felt immediately, but its effects accumulate and that’s where the hidden danger comes.

Excess salt affects high blood pressure and generally the heart and blood vessels, damage the kidneys and stomach, “helps” osteoporosis, weakens the brain functions, and according to some research, it significantly increases the chances of Alzheimer’s disease.

The salt enhances the flavor of every food and is used as a preservative. But the problem is not only in the table salt that is added intentionally, but even more in the hidden salt which is already added in the frozen, preserved and processed food. This applies not only to what we normally think as processed food but you should know that there is salt in cans and jars with lightly cooked vegetables, bakery products and dairy products, and even desserts. Many of you don’t know that corn flakes contains a lot of salt though their sweet taste and it is not difficult to imagine how much salty meats and salty snacks are overload with salt.

The amount of salt, sufficient to meet the daily requirement of our bodies is only 1 to 2 grams. But when we enter only this much, most people would complain about that the food is tasteless. Therefore, nutritionists and doctors believe that the overall salt intake should be limited to 4-6 grams daily (that’s about one tablespoon). Studies have show that the average American daily consume as much as 15 grams of salt! 10 times more than the minimum, and even three times higher than the maximum recommended amount. In Europe, things are only slightly better (10-14 grams).

So do you think that you should reduce the usage of table salt? And what do you think, is there any natural way we can make food to taste better without adding a lot of salt?

References:

http://www.cdc.gov/salt/

http://www.bloodpressureuk.org/microsites/salt/Home/Whysaltisbad/Saltseffects

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/519712/salt-NaCl

Hi, I’m a healthy life fighter, a traveler and a writer. Trying to share awareness of healthy life benefits to my family and people around the world. I write about health, nutrition, natural remedies, natural skin care and more on CoolHealthyRecipes.com

Healthy Natalie
Healthy life fighter, a traveler and a writer. Trying to share awareness of healthy life benefits to her family and people around the world. Writes about health, nutrition, natural remedies, natural skin care and happy travel stories for two websites:
http://www.coolhealthyrecipes.com/
http://www.thebookoftravel.com/