By Lubna Abdel-Aziz Salt seems to be on every pair of lips these days. We do not mean the film Salt, with the stunning pair of lips of Angelina Jolie. We mean your regular white, sandy-textured, crystal-like substance that sits on your dinner table to help make your meals more palatable. It seems so harmless and helpless in its little container minding its own business. Yet those in the know have condemned salt as a vicious, pernicious killer, which should be immediately banished to no man's land. Within the last 20 years, salt's many attributes have been gradually overlooked, and now it has definitely been marked as "the bad guy", a human killer that deserves no place among good decent citizens, at least of the United States. So says the new administration of President Obama. What is salt? How do we use it? Can we live without it? Less than five per cent of the salt produced in the world is used as a food supplement. Salt has countless other uses, 14,000 to be exact. Amongst them softening water, preserving food, removing snow, used in construction materials, etc, etc, etc. What concerns us mainly is the salt we consume. Salt is the common name for the substance sodium chloride. Sodium is an essential nutrient for the proper function of the human body. In fact, we just cannot live without it. Sodium helps maintain the proper balance of fluids in our bodies. It is essential for the transmission of nerve impulses throughout our system. It influences the contraction and relaxation of our muscles. What then seems to be the problem? Your kidney's job is to regulate the amount of sodium that stays in your bodies. When the levels of this mineral begin to dip, the kidneys begin to eliminate the salt more slowly. When the kidneys discover that our body's sodium levels are high, it increases the excretion of the salt through the urine -- so far, so good. The trouble begins when our body cannot eliminate the sodium fast enough. The sodium begins to build up in the blood stream. This naturally increases our blood volume, because sodium attracts and holds water. The increased blood volume then makes our hearts work harder at transporting the blood to all parts of our body. This extra work causes increased pressure in our arteries. Some of us are more "salt-sensitive" than others. If you suffer from congestive heart failure, your body does not eliminate the salt efficiently. If you have chronic kidney disease or cirrhosis of the liver, you suffer from the problem. Some bodies naturally retain sodium, therefore tend to retain excess fluids, which increases the chances of developing high blood pressure. Unfortunately high blood pressure has no symptoms, which eventually can lead to cardiovascular and kidney disease. Those are usually the "salt-sensitive" victims. If you are over 50, check for certain health conditions, where salt intake would be undesirable. How much is too much salt? Why is the FDA of the United States considering monitoring salt use in restaurants, schools, quick food outlets, etc? Excessive salt intake leads to several diseases besides heart and kidney, such as osteoporosis, asthma, obesity, cancer of the stomach, which in turn burdens the health care system in the US. So, if you cannot control your salt intake, Big Brother will do it for you. If you reach for that salt shaker, you will receive a slap on the hand. So used to a diet of processed, prepared, canned, and frozen foods, not to mention pop drinks, snacks and cereals, the American diet is loaded with sodium. It is estimated that the consumer takes twice more sodium as the body needs. We often forget that sodium occurs naturally in some foods such as meat, poultry, dairy products and even vegetables. The National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine recommends an intake of 1,500-2,400mg a day for healthy adults. Consider that one teaspoon of table salt has 2,325 mg of sodium. Have you ever stopped to figure how much salt you use daily? One slice of pizza contains 500-800mg of salt. Who stops at one slice? Can you swallow your boiled egg, baked potato, French fries, or popcorn without adding salt? Most foods are now labeled for sodium content. General Mills has announced its pledge to decrease sodium content by 20% in all soups, cereals, and snacks by 2015. Kraft will cut salt by 10-20 per cent within five years. Heinz has already produced a new Ketchup product with 15 per cent less salt. Other companies of processed foods are sure to follow suit. The renowned Mayo Clinic has published recommendations for consumers which you may find helpful. Read your labels carefully. Is there sodium in an innocent slice of bread? The answer is yes. Limit your use of such items as salad dressings, sauces, mustard, ketchup, pickles, relish, pop drinks, etc, all sodium laden. Fruits and vegetables are low in sodium. Fresh meats are lower in sodium than luncheon meats. Eat less processed, and more of fresh foods. Remove salt from recipes as much as possible. Use herbs, spices, citrus, and other flavourings to enhance taste. And yes -- remove the salt shaker from the table. Keep your black pepper and substitute the salt with lemon juice. Our taste for salt is hard to give up. What we should remember is that it is also an acquired taste, so it is reversible. Done gradually, your taste buds will adjust to less salt. Even if you are not sensitive to the effects of sodium now, you never know when you might develop high blood pressure as a result of a higher sodium diet. Sugar may be bad for you, but salt is "badder." We must acknowledge all the benefits that salts have bestowed on our civilization -- preserving foods, helping trade, building roads, etc. Until the 20th century, salt was one of the prime movers of national economics and war. This is the 21st century. Three cheers for salt, as long as it is off your dinner table. If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change -- Giuseppe Di Lampedusa (1896-1957)
