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Vital Information About Our Salt Requirement

Sodium is a mineral that is essential to our health. Our body needs it to regulate our body water balance, blood pressure and blood volume and also for proper functioning of our muscles and nerves.

The largest source of sodium in our food is table salt. Almost all components of our food, including milk and water, naturally contain sodium.

All the fried snacks (‘farsan’ or ‘namkin’) are high in sodium.

All fast foods like ‘wadas’, burgers, pizzas are high in sodium.

Indian foods like pickles, chatnis and papad are all high sodium foods.

Dried fish including prawns available in India are very high in salt content.

All sauces like Worcestershire sauce, soya sauce and garlic sauce are high in sodium content.

Processed meats like salami, bacon, sausage and ham, and canned soups and vegetables are high in sodium.

Many people imagine that rock salt or ‘saindhav’ is healthy. It isn’t. It contains as much sodium as table salt. So don’t replace table salt with saindhav imagining it to be the healthier option. And since it tastes less salty, most people end up using it more than table salt and in fact get more sodium than when they use table salt.

‘Chat masala’ is also a source of sodium. It is extremely unwise to use it liberally. In fact, best is to avoid it altogether.

The glamorous super chefs on television have popularized sprinkling of ample table salt and also chat masala on their cookery shows with such panache, such flamboyance that you are tempted to imitate them!

So you can see that sodium is easy to get amply and difficult to restrict.

The surest way to go overboard with our capacity to acquire a bad habit like overeating or over-drinking is to recklessly persist with it. Same holds true to eating too much salt. The more we eat it, the more do our taste buds demand it for the same level of the pleasure of eating salty food.

Gradually you can over-consume food, sugar, salt and even alcohol in quantities you couldn’t possibly have consumed previously. Your capacity of consuming food, alcohol or salt keeps going up.

So the same applies in equal measure to eating sweets! The more you eat sweet foods, the more you can eat it!

Give your taste buds a chance to adjust to low sugar, low salt food and in a few weeks you will find that you cannot eat as sweet or as salty food any more!

Too much sodium can lead to water retention and high blood pressure. Your doctor may ask you to cut down on your sodium (salt) intake if your blood pressure is high or you have oedema (swelling) on your body.

Water retention in people with congestive heart failure, liver cirrhosis, or kidney disease can lead to grave consequences. Such people are usually put on strict sodium-restricted diets by their doctors.

A healthy adult should consume less than 2,300 mg of sodium a day while individuals with high blood pressure should consume no more than 1,500 mg a day. Those with congestive heart failure, liver cirrhosis, and kidney disease may need much lower amounts.

One teaspoon of table salt contains 2,300 mg of sodium. Plus every food item that you consume and also the water that you drink contain sodium.

So you can easily see that your food should not contain any more than three fourth of a teaspoon of table salt, perhaps even a little less than that may be better! Most people easily eat much more!

A renowned Pune, India, doctor goes so far as to say that we don’t need to add table salt to our food at all, all our food is naturally endowed with all the salt we need for absolute health! And I couldn’t agree with him more!

But following his advice will take a radical change in our thinking, which can only happen with great difficulty. Also it will present some practical difficulties, like say when you eat out, in a restaurant.

But it is not very difficult to get used to low salt food. Fortunately, our taste buds are not difficult to manipulate. If you start eating low salt food consciously and persist with it for a few weeks, you can train them to get used to low salt food, just as easily as you trained them to enjoy overeating it. And then you would find it tough to get back to eating high salt food again.

Incidentally, the same principle applies to food and sweets. Eat food and sweets sensibly and moderately for a few weeks and you can train your taste buds, brain and tummy to get adjusted to the new levels quickly.

So it is vital that we constantly remain aware that we must consume food, salt, sweets and alcohol with care! Moderation is the key! It will create optimum health, lack of it will destroy it!

It is vital that we cook low salt food at home and ensure that our children learn to eat low salt food from childhood. Once low salt food becomes a culture for them, they won’t have any problem eating salt in moderation later in life.

So the best plan is to set aside just under three fourth of a teaspoon of salt per adult in your family and cook all your family meals from this salt. This, of course, is applicable to otherwise healthy families.

This also requires that your food does not include the above mentioned high sodium foods on daily basis.

If your family members eat all meals at home and eat on par with each other, everyone will get the measured amount of salt.

In contrast to sodium, potassium helps us lower our blood pressure.

Potassium relaxes our muscles, and relaxing the smooth muscles in the arterial walls relaxes the arteries and this helps lower our blood pressure.

We need potassium also for the electrolyte and acid base balance of the body and normal functioning of the muscles and nerves.

We get potassium from fresh vegetables, fruits and pulses.

While it is very easy to get sodium amply from most of your food as well as water, you have to choose right foods consciously to get adequate potassium.

Therefore you have to consciously avoid high sodium food and keep your sodium consumption low and eat more of vegetables, fruits and pulses to get adequate potassium, whether your blood pressure is high or normal, to protect yourself from heart disease and strokes.

If you consciously reduce your sodium consumption and increase your potassium consumption, you will protect yourself from heart disease and strokes.

Also read the article ‘Preventing Hypertension‘ on this website.

Not All Red Meat Is Equally Bad For The Heart!

It is now common knowledge that sea fish is excellent for the health of the heart as it is the only source of the sea source omega-3 fatty acids in our food and it protect us from the coronary artery disease.

It is also a common belief that all red meat viz. mutton, beef, and pork are bad for the heart while the white meat, viz. turkey and chicken, are fine for the heart.

Researchers now label all meat, red as well as white, as equally bad for the health of the heart.

But it will be impractical to expect all the non vegetarian people to turn vegetarian overnight.

But even amongst the meats, the amount of calories, the total fat, the saturated fat, the cholesterol and the protein contents of meats vary.

So we can still grade the available meats according to their calorie, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and the protein contents.

The most commonly consumed red meat in our country is what is called mutton, which in fact is not one kind of meat. Both goat and lamb meat are called ‘mutton’, and not many people know exactly which meat they buy as mutton.

Nutritionally goat meat is much better than lamb meat.

Goat meat is actually lower in calories, total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol than not just lamb, pork and beef meats, but also chicken meat. This makes goat meat the healthier red meat, even better than chicken.

A 100 gm serving of cooked goat meat contains about 142 calories compared to chicken 185, beef 207, pork 209 and lamb 205 calories per 100 gm.

Goat meat has 3 gm of total fat, 1.8 gm of saturated fat, 75 mg of cholesterol and 27 gm of protein per 100 gm serving.

Chicken meat has 4 gm of total fat, 1 gm of saturated fat, 85 mg of cholesterol and 31 gm of proteins per 100 gm.

Turkey meat has 3.6 gm of total fat, 1 gm of saturated fat, 109 mg of cholesterol and 21 gm of protein per 100 gm.

All other meats fare even more poorly in comparison to goat meat.

Additionally, goat meat has higher levels of iron than the other meats. It has 3.8 mg iron per 100 gm serving while beef has 3.4 mg, pork has 3.1 mg, lamb has 1.6 mg and chicken has 1.7 mg of iron per 100 gm.

Goat meat also has higher levels of potassium and lower levels of sodium than the other four types of meat. Thus it is a healthier option for people with hypertension, heart and kidney disease.

Thus goat meat is superior to all the four other types of meat including chicken meat.

So other than fish, goat meat is the best meat to consume. As always, eating moderately is the key.

One can consume 250 gm goat meat in a day, and still satisfy the upper safe limit of cholesterol consumption allowable to a person with high cholesterol levels viz. 200 mg.

Thus, if you are a mix food person, you should consider fish, goat, and chicken as the non-vegetarian options in your food, in that order. You can keep off the lamb, pork, and beef.

Other than providing you a very good source of proteins and iron, goat meat also provides you a vital nutrient in vitamin B12, which is completely absent in vegetarian food. This is significant since many Indians suffer from vitamin B12 deficiency. Iron from flesh sources is also absorbed better than that from the vegetable sources. Thus goat meat also helps prevent anaemia.

Hence eating goat meat in moderation is a good option if you are a mixed food person.

And it is perfectly fine if you are a pure lacto-vegetarian as long as you take balanced nutrition, eat ample vegetables, especially leafy vegetables, and fruits and drink ample skimmed milk. Milk provides the necessary high quality proteins as well as all the vitamin B 12 you need.

Read the articles The Basics Of Nutrition and Can I Eat A Whole Egg on this website for more information.

The Controversy Over The safety Of Artificial Sweeteners

When you are looking to evaluate the safety of artificial sweeteners like saccharine, aspartame and sucralose, you must understand that there will always be an anti-artificial-sweetener lobby and a pro-artificial-sweetener lobby.

Both sides will be making forceful arguments regarding the grave dangers posed to public health by these artificial sweeteners or the complete safety of these products.

The anti-artificial-sweetener lobby has accused the artificial sweeteners of causing illnesses ranging from lowered immunity to multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus to cancers.

The pro-artificial-sweetener lobby as well as the research results ordered by the US Government claim that the artificial sweeteners are safe.

To an outside observer, it could be a battle between cash rich vested interests and the true story could be amongst the best kept trade secrets of the world. It may never be told to you or me.

The real question is not whether we should use sugar or artificial sweeteners, it is whether we should be eating sweets at all!

Most of the sweets that you consume as deserts in fancy restaurants or buy from a sweets shop or home made sweets are also loaded with fats, comprising mostly of saturated fats and also trans fats. The principal components of Indian sweets are milk, cream, butter, ghee, vanaspati ghee (hydrogenated fats) and dry fruits. The western desserts may have refined flours, eggs, milk, cream and butter. Plus of course sugar or the artificial sweeteners will be there.

Thus you would consume ample bad fats hidden in sweets irrespective of what sweetener is used in it.

Simply all this bad fat in sweets will make you overweight and lead to hypertension, dyslipidemia (abnormal levels of blood fats and cholesterol), diabetes and heart disease, irrespective of which sweeteners are used in them, natural or artificial!

So while sugar may give you overweight, diabetes and heart disease, the artificial sweeteners, for all we know, may give us all the above diseases plus diseases as fatal as cancers, of which nobody is telling us the exact truth.

The question is, do we really need to find the truth, the hard way, ourselves?

The saner option is to consume sweets, deserts and cold drinks minimally.

And believe me, it can be done far more easily than you think.

Most people think that they just can’t do without sweets, that they have uncontrollable cravings for sweets, which they can never conquer. So they replace sugar with artificial sweeteners, and thus buy obesity, diabetes, heart disease as well as, perhaps, cancers!

As we have seen in the Latest Post ‘How Much Salt Do I Need?’, we are masters of our taste buds, not the other way round.

Like in case of salt, we have to just get determined to stop eating sweets for a few weeks. Once you just shut out the desire to eat sweets altogether for those few weeks, the craving will automatically go away.

The best option is to stop buying all kinds sweets and sweet drinks and sweeteners. If you have no stock at home or the work place, you can’t reach out to them! And if you can’t reach out to them, you won’t consume them!

Within weeks, you will find that you don’t even remember to reach out to them, far less stop and buy them!

Try this technique honestly, and I am sure, you will have no need to buy much sugar and no artificial sweeteners at all!

Read the article ‘How Much Salt Do I Need?‘ for more information.

Fruits Are A Fountain Of Health, Eat them Amply!

Few people in India eat enough fruits, most do not eat them at all, even amongst those who can afford them! Few people realize that fruits are not only a treasure of nutrition giving you excellent health but they actually prevent or reverse numerous severe and chronic diseases. Thus very few people have fruits as an integral part of their daily food intake.

Bananas, mangoes, papaya, apples, pears, guavas, pomegranates, oranges, sweet limes, sapota or chikkoo, grapes,  cherries and berries like blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, in fact all fruits are wonderfully nutritious.

All fruits and vegetables are rich in a variety of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants along with carbohydrates and some amino acids. They are also rich in dietary fibre.

They provide us with beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, vitamin C, B vitamins, folate, vitamin E, minerals like iron, calcium, copper, magnesium, manganese and potassium.

They also provide us with a group of vital nutrients called antioxidants. These include phenolic flavonoids, lycopene, carotenoids and glucosinolates.

Vitamins and minerals are essential to every sphere of our health. They have a vital role to play in the health and functioning of every organ and component of our body, from the water content of our body to the blood and the blood pressure, from the skin to the hair, from the teeth to the bones, from the eyes to the the kidneys, from the brain to the nerves, from the muscles to the joints, from the heart to the lungs, from the liver to the stomach and the intestines, from the hormonal system to the reproductive system; nothing in your body can function normally without them.

Antioxidants are essential to neutralize the destructive effect of the free radicals that are formed in our body during oxidative processes. These free radicals are atoms or group of atoms that have odd or unpaired electrons. They attach themselves to healthy cells of different tissues and react with vital elements of the cells like the DNA or cell membrane. The cell dies or starts malfunctioning.

Our body has several enzyme systems to neutralize the destructive chain reaction unleashed by these free radicals. Vitamins C and E also are included in the list of antioxidants along with the above compounds.

The destruction triggered by these free radicals leads to many diseases like hypertension, raised cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, many cancers, cataract, arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease and obstructive pulmonary disease.

Antioxidants help us prevent or fight these diseases. They also slow down ageing and boost our immune system.

Fruits are also a rich source of potassium. Potassium helps relax arterial walls, excretes sodium, thus helping lower blood pressure and preventing heart disease.

Thus adequate consumption of a variety of fruits and vegetables helps keep us healthy and prevent the above disease.

Fruits and vegetables are also rich in fibre. The insoluble fibre in fruits helps in keeping our bowel movement regular while the soluble fibre helps lower the bad low density cholesterol. It also helps stabilize blood sugar and decreases the need to keep snacking.

Digestive enzymes like papain, bromelain, esters and terpenes present in fruits like papaya, pineapple and mango help us digest our food better.

You must consume at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Even more servings are beneficial.

Many people complain of an irresistible desire to eat sweets after each meal, or any time they see sweets, which prevents them from losing weight. Such people can easily become obese and diabetic. Eating fruits daily also helps eliminate this irresistible desire to eat sweets, helping you lose weight easier and protects you against diabetes.

If fruits are not a part of your food culture, include them now!

Every one who has done it after consulting me, including those who were avowed fruit haters, will vouch for dramatic improvement in their sense of well being, improved digestion and bowel movement, freedom from the symptoms of hyperacidity and improved skin and complexion!

People who consume ample fruits and vegetables have a much lower risk of developing the  above diseases than those who don’t.

People who are looking to lose weight also can easily eat ample fruits, without worrying about gaining weight. Replacing the rubbish, high fat, high sugar snacks from your food culture with fruits will immensely help you lose weight healthily!

We can get the widest possible range of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants by eating a variety of fruits and vegetables. So don’t limit yourself to a few fruits and vegetables, eat all fresh fruits and vegetables available. And choose them from the widest range of colours, to ensure that you get the widest range of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Always eat fruits with the skin intact, as the antioxidants usually sit under the skin and they are lost when the skin is peeled off.

Read the article ‘Basics Of Nutrition‘, ‘Diseases Associated With Obesity‘, ‘Obesity, Diabetes And Heart Disease‘ and ‘Healthy Fruits For Diabetics And Weight Losers’ on this website.

Using Meal Replacing Food Packs Is Nothing But Planned Starvation!

The weight loss industry is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. Naturally slimming treatments of every conceivable kind are available in the market, most of them no more than a figment of the imagination of fertile minds looking to exploit the gullible and ignorant people, desperate to lose weight, to make millions!

One such prominent kind of bogus treatment is to sell overweight people so called nutritional food packs or liquids, sometimes accompanying some magic pills that are said to raise your metabolic rate in some mysterious way unknown to science and help you burn more calories to slim down effortlessly!

The most famous herbal product amongst these has been found to contain heavy metal contamination, toxic compounds, psychotropic substances and pathogenic bacterial contamination and has been associated with acute liver failure, liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, renal failure and death.

The growth of these products and expansion of its nutrition clubs in major cities that promise fake health benefits portend a serious public health concern.

These so called nutritional products are manufactured and chain-marketed by huge multinational companies and employ freelance people who look to make easy money by pushing these products to anyone they know or meet.

These people know nothing about nutrition or health, so probably many of them don’t even understand the gravity of the danger they pose to the health of their victims! And they loftily label themselves as ‘Nutrition Centre’ and ‘Wellness Centre’!

The multi nationality of these companies is good enough to convince many people that the treatment must be good! This is anything but true!

These so called nutritional products are expected to provide you with the same nutrition that your meals provide but carry much fewer calories. You are told to replace one or more meals with this pack till you lose weight.

This pack swells up in your stomach when ingested and you feel full. It takes care of your hunger at this meal time.

What it doesn’t take care of, irrespective of claims to the contrary is the nutrition provided to you by your normal meal! If it did, it would provide you with the same number of calories as your normal meal, which would defeat the very purpose of replacing a meal with a low calorie substitute.

Your normal meal will provide you with certain grams of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, along with vitamin and minerals. Each gram of carbohydrates and proteins provides you with four calories while fats provide nine calories.

If your food pack were to contain the same number of grams of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, it would have the same number of calories. It can’t have fewer calories and still provide the same nutrition.

If it did provide the same number of calories, it wouldn’t precipitate weight loss. If it provided fewer calories, it wouldn’t have the same nutrition!

But people on these so called nutritional food packs do lose weight for a while because replacing meals with these packs amounts to planned starvation! It takes no brains to understand that starvation will precipitate weight loss, even if temporary, but it will also invariably destroy your health, often permanently!

Starvation sends your body into ‘survival mode’ and lowers your metabolic rate, meaning your body burns fewer calories every day than it did earlier. Naturally, as soon as you stop these bogus food packs, as you must sooner or later, and start eating normal food, your weight shoots up quickly, higher than it was earlier.

Apart from this, what you lose on starvation based diets includes glycogen (a kind of carbohydrate stored in your liver and muscles and used as the immediate source of energy during initial activity), water and proteins and not just fat. So you don’t actually slim down as much as the scale shows. The body quickly regains glycogen, water, and proteins when you stop starving and regains weight even before it restores all the lost fat and then some more!

The damage goes much beyond this. You develop various deficiencies of vital nutrients. You feel weak, tired and become anaemic, pale and haggard, with wrinkled skin and hair loss. Most people, who persist with this dangerous treatment, develop hyperacidity, colitis, malabsorption syndrome, severe electrolyte imbalance, hypertension and sometimes fatal complications. Many people land up in hospitals on such treatments.

Audaciously, these people even sale their products to diabetics, who would be at great risk on such products.

Apart from the dangerous side effects, you can’t take these expensive powders or liquids and miss one or more meals every day for a lifetime. Once you stop, you become more obese!

You must understand that there are no magic treatments for losing weight!

Only a healthy lifestyle, excellent nutrition consisting of our normal food, sufficient exercises even as simple as walking, adequate rest and mental peace and happiness can give you superb slimming and optimum health!

Read the articles ‘Basics Of Nutrition‘,  ‘Simple Steps To Slimming‘ and ‘Dangers of Unscientific Treatments‘ on this website for more information.