It’s an old medical debate that comes up often in the news: the salt-free diet. Life is not lacking in salt … Neither does the history of medicine. Remember. The salt-free rusk, the salt-free baguette, the absolute horror of our parents’ diets as soon as they had a little high blood pressure.
And then, in the 90s, with the return to greater tolerance, our cardiologists told us not to salt too much but to keep the pleasure of gastronomy… By being wary of hidden salts.
And this is where the advice gets a little kinky. Especially if we are to believe an official report, which moreover dates from a few years ago, which attempted to demonstrate that the salt added to excess in food by the agri-food industry would cause 75,000 cardiovascular accidents each year, including 25,000. deadly.
A figure so high that many specialists had spoken at the time of this publication of bizarre data. They are probably not that much and the objective now defined by doctors today is to lower the salt content of foods sold in stores.
So why this over-salting by manufacturers? Well, to rig the weight by retaining the water, so sell at a higher price… What our farmers knew how to do in the past by giving salt tablets to gain a few kilos by making their pigs thirsty. Machiavellianism does not date from the modern world and these guilty industrialists are also accused of the same crime: making us thirsty and encouraging the consumption of drinks produced by these same groups. The priority targets are: bakeries and industrial meats, as well as many canned goods.
There was an extremely violent reaction from food industry professionals, a reaction that can be compared to the pressures generated by the alcohol and tobacco lobbies. But again with little chance of arousing compassion because we know that each French person consumes an average of 4 kilos of salt per year, or nearly twice the limit dose set by the World Health Organization. However, it is also necessary to make future patients a little more responsible, because it is also at the table, with the salt shaker, that the limits set by medicine are exceeded on a daily basis.
Salt is so important to our health, simply because we have a vital need for sodium and sodium is found in salt. Hence in the past, this incessant quest for salt which was, moreover in the Middle Ages, the subject of a tax.
So, you have to eat salt. Yes, but here we are, we are consuming too much. Five times too much on average, that is to say that where we would theoretically need 3 to 5 grams (that is to say 1/2 teaspoon) per day, we rather bring 10 to 15 grams. Not just by a pinch, but because all foods contain it. For example, did you know that the poorest of all, pineapple, still contains almost 1 mg per serving?
You should know that each gram of salt fixes 7 grams of water, therefore more circulation and weight gain. In fact, the relationship between excessive salt consumption and aging has been known for a long time. It is therefore necessary to reduce the intake. This does not, of course, mean removing salt, which would be odious for taste, pleasure and therefore life.
Concretely, even if there is salt everywhere, it is not there in equivalent quantity. The danger will be in priority, cold meats, fermented cheeses, industrial sauces and preserves. By removing the salt shaker at the table and very moderately salt the cooking water, in most cases this should suffice.
In particular, no longer impose the odious salt-free wand on yourself… and then learn to read product labels to recognize enemies.
One last point, if for you it is too late, I mean you already have hypertension, your children and grandchildren are not. So there, a simple solution for which they will be, oh so grateful to you later! : teach them, from childhood, to eat very little salt. Because there, it is about a mode of prevention which plays no longer on the deprivation of the pleasure but simply on the learning of the taste.
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