no more than HOW MUCH salt per day?
We all know that as adults we should not eat more than 6g of salt per day, and that eating in excess of this amount is bad for you. M’kay?
I used the government’s website for some help in working out how much salt I’m eating. Until now I had thought that I didn’t eat much salt, and wanted to see if I was right or not. My father had high blood pressure when I was a child (which later turned out to be white coat syndrome) so my mother stopped cooking with salt, saying we could add it ourselves if we wanted to. I didn't, and grew up without a particular taste for salt. I like to taste my food before salting it at all, but know several people who grind away before even sampling it. I had assumed that not cooking with salt would mean I’d be some super-healthy salt-dodger, especially because I rarely eat pre-prepared meals and take-aways and don’t frequently eat in restaurants (apart from holidays obviously but I’m talking usual habits rather than exceptions). How wrong I was!
I used the government’s website for some help in working out how much salt I’m eating. Until now I had thought that I didn’t eat much salt, and wanted to see if I was right or not. My father had high blood pressure when I was a child (which later turned out to be white coat syndrome) so my mother stopped cooking with salt, saying we could add it ourselves if we wanted to. I didn't, and grew up without a particular taste for salt. I like to taste my food before salting it at all, but know several people who grind away before even sampling it. I had assumed that not cooking with salt would mean I’d be some super-healthy salt-dodger, especially because I rarely eat pre-prepared meals and take-aways and don’t frequently eat in restaurants (apart from holidays obviously but I’m talking usual habits rather than exceptions). How wrong I was!
A lot of the food I eat doesn’t have readily available salt levels on it (fresh fruit, for example) and some of it only gives sodium levels which is not the same as salt. To convert a sodium reading into salt content, you multiply the sodium level by 2.5. Ergo, my yoghurt which has 0.1g sodium per 100g actually contains 0.25g salt per 100g, and as the pot is 200g, the whole pot contains 0.5g salt. The rest of my lunch contains 1.8g salt (I won’t bore you with the calculations!).
1.25g salt per 100g (0.5g sodium per 100g) is A LOT OF SALT, apparently.
I don't know about you, but I hadn't actually clocked the fact there is salt (or sodium) in water. I see the sodium content on the side of evian bottles (5mg per litre apparently but I'm reading the french bit so that could actually be the amount of nuns per hectare, who knows?). Anyway, tap water should contain no more than 200mg sodium per litre – which is 500mg salt, or 0.5g– and I drink about 2 litres of that a day, which works out at about 1g salt. I sometimes drink mineral water with a lower amount of sodium, but today I'm cheap and on boiled tap water (with my green tea tea bags).
So excluding fruit and tea bags, and including the rest of the water I’ll drink during the day, I’m on about (0.5 + 1.8 + 1 =) 3.3 g salt so far today. That’s a lot, in fact it’s over half of my allowance.
This evening I’m out for a pint, and I hate to think how much salt there’ll be in beer. I’ll update this later/ tomorrow when I will have kept a tally of what I eat after this point, and see if I go over 6g. I tell you what, my notion of finishing off lunch with a packet of salt and vinegar french-fries has now gone out of the window!
1.25g salt per 100g (0.5g sodium per 100g) is A LOT OF SALT, apparently.
I don't know about you, but I hadn't actually clocked the fact there is salt (or sodium) in water. I see the sodium content on the side of evian bottles (5mg per litre apparently but I'm reading the french bit so that could actually be the amount of nuns per hectare, who knows?). Anyway, tap water should contain no more than 200mg sodium per litre – which is 500mg salt, or 0.5g– and I drink about 2 litres of that a day, which works out at about 1g salt. I sometimes drink mineral water with a lower amount of sodium, but today I'm cheap and on boiled tap water (with my green tea tea bags).
So excluding fruit and tea bags, and including the rest of the water I’ll drink during the day, I’m on about (0.5 + 1.8 + 1 =) 3.3 g salt so far today. That’s a lot, in fact it’s over half of my allowance.
This evening I’m out for a pint, and I hate to think how much salt there’ll be in beer. I’ll update this later/ tomorrow when I will have kept a tally of what I eat after this point, and see if I go over 6g. I tell you what, my notion of finishing off lunch with a packet of salt and vinegar french-fries has now gone out of the window!
Shock yourself! Work out how much salt you eat today! It might mean that you don't eat the packet of salt and vinegar french fries you have been salivating over since 1100am. If you're me that is. I haven't bought them yet, and am probably too lazy to go to the shop just to check out the salt content (ok, and too weak-willed to not buy three packets when I'm there), but it's on my list of things to check out.
posted by Chaya at 2:10 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home