Salt – Good or bad
Article written by – Gousiya Sulthana
Hello readers! 🙂
Very recently I was cooking a dish and I was thinking as to what I shout write about in my next post. I was giving myself so many options but it wasn’t satisfying. So I got confused, and as I was cooking the dish I remembered I had to add the salt and I did. I simply took out the salt container added some salt looking at it the way it flows through my fingers. That’s it, I got the answer for my question. I wanted to write about “Salt”. The basic ingredient that we use daily without which we can never imagine any tasty dish.
Apart from taste do you know why we add salt in our food? Do you have an answer? If you know, that’s great. If you are not sure, let me try to explain . Salt is not only added to add flavour and enhance the taste of our food but also to maintain the body metabolisms. Sodium and chloride present in the salt are vital for various metabolism in our body without which our body would collapse. Both high and low amount of salt affect our body.
Therefore, there is recommended level of salt to be consumed for normal functioning of the body.
Recommended level of Salt intake 🧂
High or low amount of salt in our body can have adverse effect on health. High level of salt intake increases blood pressure (high BP) which inturn affect heart and cause cardiovascular diseases, stroke and heart attack. On the other hand low intake of salt reduces blood pressure (low BP) makes us lethargic and weak. There is average blood pressure level that is to be maintained by an individual for normal functioning. If one fails to maintain the average blood pressure level it affects our body.
Now knowing the importance of salt, it is important for us to know how much of salt is required by adults and children. According to World Health Organization (WHO) an adult should not consume more than 5g of salt per day and that is equal to 1 teaspoon of salt. For children it could be lesser than 5g of salt depending on their activities.
Sodium and chloride molecules
Salt is a mixture of sodium and chloride molecules approximately in the ratio of 2:3. Amount of sodium present in the blood determines high or low blood pressure. Therefore, it is very important to maintain required level of sodium. The daily recommended value for sodium intake is 1500 milligrams (mg).
Chloride molecules on the other hand functions in much similar way like sodium and it’s daily recommended value is 2300 milligrams (mg). But compared to sodium, chloride related disorders are much less.
Is the table salt we add in food the only source of sodium?
The simple answer is no. Apart from table salt, there are other sodium containing products we consume unknowingly. These salts are present in all kind of processed foods like potato chips, biscuits, pizzas, burgers, sauces etc… in the form of sodium bicarbonate, sodium nitrate, monosodium glutamate and sodium benzoate. If you eat any processed food next time I would request you to check the ingredients and the nutritive value of the product. I am sure they would have mentioned amount sodium. You would be surprised to see the amount of sodium present in per serving of product and not many Indians are aware of this. According to a recent study an average Indian consumes around 11 grams of salt per day, that is double the amount of recommended level. Maybe this could be the reason why majority of Indians now either suffer from high blood pressure or cardiovascular diseases and the cases are expected to increase over the years.
Daily value of Sodium
If you are a person who often eats processed food, I would recommend you not to, but if you are in undeniable situation I would suggest you to check all amount of sodium you consume in a day. In the processed food it would have been mentioned as DV % in the table of nutrition facts and make sure all your sodium uptake is less than 2300 mg. For example you can check the picture below for amount of sodium present in 27 g of serving.
Consuming more than recommended level of sodium for 1 or 2 days may not have big impact on our health. But if we consume excessive sodium for prolonged period then chances of us getting blood pressure related problems and cardiovascular diseases are much higher.
As you know good and bad effects of salt now. I would suggest you to consume appropriate amount of salt for you to stay healthy.
Thank you for reading!
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Disclaimer: The above information is not to be taken as medical advice. Consult your physician for any health related problems.
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