The Facts About The connection Between Eating Salt And High Blood Pressure

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Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

Used for thousands of years to add taste to food and as a preservative, salt is an essential part of our diet. Furthermore, despite the fact that a lot of people in the West simply take it for granted, in many countries it is a vital economic commodity and many older readers will certainly remember the part played by salt in ending British rule in India in the middle of the last century.

Unfortunately salt is also a key contributory factor when it comes to the problem of high blood pressure, or hypertension.

Salt is a compound composed of chloride and sodium and when it comes to high blood pressure it is the quantity of sodium that we consume that we need to watch.

At first sight it might seem that controlling your salt intake is just a matter of limiting the quantity of salt which you add to food while you are cooking and which you add to your food at the table. However, the real problem is the fact that most of the salt in our diet is found in the processed foods which nearly all of us consume each day.

To ensure that you minimize the risk of hypertension you have to keep your intake of salt under the recommended daily sodium intake level of 2,400 milligrams and so here are a few tips to help you do just that:

Take the salt off the dining table. If you diet is correctly balanced your food will contain enough salt without any need to add more while you are eating, so simply remove the salt from your table.

Learn to read food labels. The laws governing food labeling have been greatly improved in recent years and most foods carry nutritional information which includes the amount of sodium which the food contains. You have to read the labels carefully though as frequently the sodium figure will apply to the whole tin or pack and sometimes it will apply to an individual serving.

Purchase sodium free or low sodium products. A lot of foods nowadays come in sodium free or low sodium options and, whenever possible, you need to select these instead of the regular product.

Eat low salt snacks. The majority of us enjoy snacking but try to select things like fruit and vegetables and, if you cannot live without your crisps then choose varieties that are low in sodium or salt free.

Watching your salt consumption is of course only one element of creating a diet which is good for your blood pressure and you should also look at choosing items from the wide range of foods to lower blood pressure.

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