Dr. Clove has told everyone many times in previous articles that eating too much salt may bring many health risks.
But what can we do to control the amount of salt we eat? Next, I’d like to tell you a few tips for salt restriction.
Salt-limiting spoon and salt-limiting tank
The main component of salt is sodium chloride. When we talk about [salt restriction], we actually refer to [restriction of sodium intake].
A large number of studies have shown that high sodium diet will increase the risk of hypertension, which will lead to stroke, myocardial infarction and other diseases, and even death in severe cases. At the same time, hypertension itself requires strict drug control and health management, which require a lot of money to achieve, which is also a very heavy burden on the national health insurance system.
Therefore, the Government also urgently hopes that everyone can eat less salt.
In China, the main sources of sodium intake are edible salt and soy sauce, of which 70% are sodium from edible salt.
Although fried chicken and potato chips have a lot of salt in what, they are not good targets for intervention for the time being because most people have not eaten them every day.
Therefore, the Government’s first ingenious move is to let everyone put less salt when cooking.
However, as a nation that has been proud of cooking for 5,000 years, our people must be salty and intolerable, and we must not directly let everyone stop eating salt. At the same time, different families have different tastes and eat different amounts of salt. It would be unfair to families who eat light food if they directly stipulate [halving salt].
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents, The recommended daily intake of salt (including salt in soy sauce and other foods) for healthy adults should not exceed 6 g. The common 2 g salt limit spoon is no more than, no less than, exactly 2 g salt (one spoon refers to a flat spoon, The part higher than the salt spoon should be removed). A family of three uses up to three spoons of salt for a meal, which is more intuitive. When adding salt, it is no longer necessary to feel it. It is more convenient if there are elderly people with hypertension in the family.
In addition to the 2-g salt-limited spoon, there are also 1-g, 3-g and 6-g products on the market, which you can choose according to your cooking habits. For example, if you choose a 6-g salt-limited spoon, the salt in a meal for a family of three will be controlled within one spoon.
There is also a good thing that has the same function as the salt limit spoon, called the salt limit tank, which was also done for a few dollars.
At present, the average salt intake of urban residents in our country has exceeded 10g g. It is necessary to use these small salt-limited objects to control the salt put in cooking.
Here is a digression. As a low-oil diet often mentioned together with salt-limited diet, it also has the same measuring tool as salt-limited spoon, that is, oil-limited kettle.
Since the recommended intake limit of edible oil per person per day is 25 g, the oil limit pot is also a simple and easy-to-use instrument for quantifying intake.
Low sodium salt
With the salt-limited spoon, the problem of those who want to eat less salt and can eat less salt has been solved, but what should the [heavy taste] party, which originally ate salty food, do?
If there is less salt in the dishes, what should I do about salt roasted chicken, salt crisp chicken, salt duck, salt fried meat, salt boiled bamboo shoots, salt roasted saury and salt sheep kidney?
At this time, I would like to introduce another artifact to you: low! Sodium! Salt!
Speaking of which, some people want to ask, salt is not sodium chloride, sodium in salt is less, what about the remaining chloride ions?
The answer is, there can be potassium.
Existing studies have shown that the dietary potassium intake of Chinese people is generally low, and the lower potassium intake is not conducive to cardiovascular health. If the potassium intake is increased on the basis of a low sodium diet, the risk of hypertension will be further reduced.
Therefore, replacing some sodium elements (usually 30% ~ 40%) in salt with potassium elements has great health benefits. Moreover, it does not have to force people to eat less salt-although the salty taste of potassium ions is a little bitter, it is better than not having any salty taste at all.
1. Is low sodium salt safe?
Speaking of potassium chloride, isn’t this the medicine often used to inject death penalty in movies? Is this also what can be eaten every day as salt? ?
The answer is, there is no need to worry too much. As long as there are no potassium metabolic diseases such as hyperkalemia and renal failure, and as long as you still eat low sodium salt as salt (instead of swallowing it like rice), low sodium salt containing potassium chloride can be eaten with confidence.
Potassium chloride used in the movie to carry out the death penalty, It is a high-concentration potassium chloride solution formed by adding a large amount of potassium chloride to the water, and it enters the human body through intravenous injection, which will form a peak of blood potassium concentration in the blood in a very short period of time, and this summit will cause electrolyte imbalance in cells, thus causing cardiac arrest and death.
Here, the most important thing is to have high concentration of potassium in blood, which is why high concentration of potassium chloride solution is used.
However, the amount of potassium chloride in low sodium salt is very small-even if the sodium ions in low sodium salt eaten every day reach the upper limit of the recommended sodium value (2,000 mg), the potassium ions in salt are only 1,000 mg, which is only half of the recommended intake of 2,000 mg of potassium ions.
Moreover, if it is a high-risk group for hypertension, or if it is a patient with hypertension, then the Chinese Nutrition Society recommends eating more potassium every day, specifically 3,600 mg. This is not to mention worrying about eating too much.
Moreover, low sodium salt is eaten from the mouth, and absorption in the intestinal tract is a relatively slow process. Cells have sufficient time to process and supplement potassium ions entering the blood, and a small part of potassium ions will be directly discharged out of the body by intestinal epithelial cells in feces. Therefore, healthy people really need not worry.
2. Who cannot eat low sodium salt?
So why did you say before that patients with hyperkalemia and renal failure cannot eat low sodium salt?
This is because the basic blood potassium of hyperkalemia patients is high, and the slight fluctuation of blood potassium will exceed the risk critical value. Blood potassium in patients with renal failure does not necessarily have problems, but their function of discharging bleeding potassium has problems, which leads to potassium intake that is just a rain in Mao Mao for the average person, and to them, it is like splashing a lake directly from the sky.
Similarly, people who are using potassium preparations clinically for potassium supplement can no longer eat low sodium salt in addition to the amount of potassium supplement approved by doctors.
3. Minor Disadvantages of Low Sodium Salt
Praise low sodium salt for such a pass, it looks quite perfect, but it still has two shortcomings that must be said:
- Low sodium salt does still have a little bitter taste, and some people may take some time to get used to it. Low sodium salt is at least 30% more expensive than ordinary refined salt, after all, there are still many families whose economic pressure is higher than their health needs.
In addition, many families are not aware of the risks of a high-sodium diet, so they are unwilling to accept more expensive low-sodium salt. These two factors together lead to a narrow market for low-sodium salt, which is difficult to popularize in small supermarkets. The salt industry is now actively trying to improve this.
Where can I buy low sodium salt?
It is necessary to remind online shoppers that due to relevant laws, regulations and policies, all salt cannot be purchased across provinces and cities for the time being, so low sodium salt cannot be purchased online.
However, there is no need to worry. Under normal circumstances, each province and city’s own salt companies produce low sodium salt. In some high-end supermarkets, low sodium salt should already be a necessary commodity.
What needs to be reminded is that the content of sodium in low sodium salt is less than that in ordinary salt, but it also contains certain sodium. Therefore, it is not to say that low sodium salt can be eaten at will, but also to pay attention to the amount.