TheBoySaunders.com

I far preferred it when food products weren’t forced to display the volumes of unhealthy ingredients on their packaging. Ignorance being bliss, and all, I didn’t know before fairly recently that my standard lunch (four white rolls with tuna mayonnaise sandwich filler) constitutes the majority of my Recommended Daily Allowance of salt. Each individual plain roll, for example, contains 15% of my salt RDA, and this is before the addition of margarine and filler.

As such, just in one weekday lunchtime meal (’snack’ is more approriate), I consume well over 50% of my recommended salt intake. Excess salt consumption can lead to (and yeah, I copied and pasted from Wikipedia):

exercise-induced asthma.^.

heartburn.

osteoporosis: One report shows that a high salt diet does reduce bone density in girls. Yet “While high salt intakes have been associated with detrimental effects on bone health, there are insufficient data to draw firm conclusions.”

Gastric cancer (Stomach cancer) is associated with high levels of sodium, “but the evidence does not generally relate to foods typically consumed in the UK.” However, in Japan, salt consumption is higher.

hypertension (high blood pressure): “Since 1994, the evidence of an association between dietary salt intakes and blood pressure has increased. The data have been consistent in various study populations and across the age range in adults.” A large scale study from 2007 has shown that people with high-normal blood pressure who significantly reduced the amount of salt in their diet decreased their chances of developing cardiovascular disease by 25% over the following 10 to 15 years. Their risk of dying from cardiovascular disease decreased by 20%.

left ventricular hypertrophy (cardiac enlargement): “Evidence suggests that high salt intake causes left ventricular hypertrophy, a strong risk factor for cardiovascular disease, independently of blood pressure effects.” “…there is accumulating evidence that high salt intake predicts left ventricular hypertrophy.” Excessive salt (sodium) intake, combined with an inadequate intake of water, can cause hypernatremia. It can exacerbate renal disease.

edema (BE: oedema): A decrease in salt intake has been suggested to treat edema (fluid retention).

duodenal ulcers and gastric ulcers

Death. Ingestion of large amounts of salt in a short time (about 1 g per kg of body weight) can be fatal. Salt solutions have been used in China as a traditional suicide method, and deaths have also resulted from attempted use of salt solutions as emetics, forced salt intake, and accidental confusion of salt with sugar in child food.

So, judging by the amount of cheese I eat for dinner, I’ll be dead within the year. I was so much happier not knowing the crap I was eating. Why did you have to ruin it, Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, WHY?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.