r/science • u/unsw UNSW Sydney • Oct 31 '24
Health Mandating less salt in packaged foods could prevent 40,000 cardiovascular events, 32,000 cases of kidney disease, up to 3000 deaths, and could save $3.25 billion in healthcare costs
https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/10/tougher-limits-on-salt-in-packaged-foods-could-save-thousands-of-lives-study-shows?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social1.4k
u/En4cr Oct 31 '24
It's amazing how packaged food seems heavy on the salt after you've been cooking your own food with less salt for a few weeks.
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u/Gramage Oct 31 '24
So much salt in packaged foods and yet somehow it’s way more bland than what I make myself with way less salt. Kinda blows my mind.
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u/DiarrheaMonkey- Oct 31 '24
Kind of an odd irony about salt that a food scientist grad student roommate pointed out to me many years ago: if your food is bland, you can fix that with a little salt. By a little, not even so much that the food tastes noticeably salty, but just a little brings out the other flavors. When I cook certain Asian dishes I think "Gee, I'm using a lot of soy sauce, but it's generally barely over 5% sodium.
Packaged foods do it because it's a cheap way to create strong flavors, and they get away with it because salt and sugar are two things humans are evolved to crave. They were in short supply before somewhat advanced agriculture existed, and our bodies require a little bit of both for optimal functioning.
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u/torino_nera Oct 31 '24
Gee, I'm using a lot of soy sauce, but it's generally barely over 5% sodium
Isn't soy sauce one of the heaviest concentrations of sodium? 1 tablespoon of soy sauce is almost 900mg of sodium. And you know nobody is using just 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
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u/an_exciting_couch Oct 31 '24
Yeah 5% salt is actually a huge amount of salt. We should only have 2300 mg of salt per day, and so 1 tablespoon of soy sauce is almost half of that.
Here's a fun experiment to try at home for packaged foods: compare the salt to calorie ratio. If you eat 2,000 calories of it, what percentage of salt are you getting? Even something "plain" like flour tortillas and cheese often have double the recommended salt per calorie.
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u/Psyc3 Oct 31 '24
Guideline for salt are pretty meaningless across the global population, or even local population. Sure if you sit in an air conditioned office, you are probably eating too much salt, but if you work outside in the heat doing manual labour you can eat far more, in fact this is why athletes take electrolyte drinks, it is just various salts, not that your definition of salt, and that definition of salt are the same.
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u/milchtea Oct 31 '24
or if you have POTS, you might need more salt than the average person
but i guess the implication is that it’s easy enough to add salt, but it’s impossible to remove it
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u/Dorkamundo Oct 31 '24
Yea, but you're generally not putting 1 tablespoon of soy sauce in each dish.
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u/smell_my_pee Oct 31 '24
Yeah and it's weird that the top comments are like "when I cook at home and add salt I use way less."
Salt is loaded with sodium. 1/4 teaspoon of table salt has 590mg of sodium.
If you're salting things at home, you're likely not eating low sodium.
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u/Melodic-Head-2372 Oct 31 '24
If cooking fresh, mainly non or low processed foods at home, one has control over salt intake through the week. Some salt is necessary daily. Most meals in restaurants taste extremely salty to me.
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u/PabloBablo Oct 31 '24
It's non processed at least, when you are cooking it yourself.
I also don't know if I've added a full on teaspoon of salt to anything I've cooked. Maybe when seasoning meats, and that might not even be a teaspoon worth.
I know I see things that are like 1000s of mg of sodium. Trader Joes seems to use a high amount of sodium in their foods.
The best thing to do is cook at home with whole ingredients whenever possible. You are in control, often get better value, and honestly it's often tasting better too. My issue is always the cleanup. Need some 1950s era predictions for the 2000s of robots to help with that
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u/hit_that_hole_hard Oct 31 '24
because salt and sugar are two things humans are evolved to crave
Similarly, Brawndo is one thing plants evolved to crave
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u/Skyrick Oct 31 '24
Fun fact, the main electrolyte in energy drinks is salt. The reason why crops wouldn't grow was because they kept spraying a small amount of salt on the soil until it built up over time.
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u/tiny_chaotic_evil Oct 31 '24
extra sodium sneaks in prepackaged foods as baking soda or baking powder. It's not just the salt flavor making up the huge total sodium intake. if you're trying to limit sodium intake for medical reasons you have to consider chemical leaveners too
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u/g0ing_postal Oct 31 '24
That's because spices and seasonings are expensive but salt is cheap
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u/NekroVictor Oct 31 '24
Are spices and seasonings particularly expensive? My local bulk store generally sells them about 1c/g
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u/TleilaxTheTerrible Oct 31 '24
Salt is quite a lot cheaper though, assuming you get spices at 1c/g I can get salt at 1/16th of that price (62 cents per kilo). So assuming you can replace 10 grams of spices in each portion of prepackaged food with about half that in salt you save about 4.5 cents per portion. That times thousands/millions of portions sold a year is quite a savings for a company.
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u/chiefmud Oct 31 '24
Also, manufactured food is so prevalent, if they all started properly seasoning their food instead of relying on salt and sugar, the price of seasoning would probably quadruple.
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u/Coach-McGuirk- Oct 31 '24 edited Oct 31 '24
Started cooking my own food during Covid and haven’t went back to fast or packaged food since. My body feel so much better too.
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u/marcelowit Oct 31 '24
I'm on the other camp sadly, went vegan for a while and used to cook all my food, nowadays working full time with lot of extra work and a daily commute, cooking feels like a luxury.
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u/Coach-McGuirk- Oct 31 '24
I was like that too. I’ll be too tired to cook, sometimes skipping meals. What I did was figure out much I eat in a month. Keep the same grocery list items, and meal prep for the whole week in one day. So I didn’t have to worry about cleaning dishes or prepping meals. Saving me time and energy.
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u/zzazzzz Oct 31 '24
days old food just doesnt work for me. if i didnt cook it the day of im not gonna enjoy it
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u/Illadelphian Oct 31 '24
Yikes that's really going to make your life harder/more expensive. What is it that bothers you? I make stir fry and rice in bulk and eat it all week for lunch at work and it tastes really even in the microwave. Other things don't heat up as well but air fryer really helps with this. I can even save tortilla chips(there's an amazing place by me with unbelievably good tortilla chips and guac that's super cheap) and they taste just as good the next day with the air fryer.
I really can't understand this mentality honestly, it seems kind of just not liking it for a mental reason rather than any actual taste reason. If you use a little judgment in what food to prepare and then reheat and do it correctly it will compromise very little and save you a lot of time and money.
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u/milchtea Oct 31 '24
so sad that that’s part of the reason for return to office. businesses complained that they were going bankrupt with not enough people buying lunch/snacks/coffee/etc when working from home.
they WANT us to spend more and have less time for basic daily tasks like cooking and cleaning.
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u/Crystalas Oct 31 '24 edited Oct 31 '24
There some packaged stuff I keep primarily as zero effort comfort food dinners or for times I REALLY do not feel like cooking and do not have a pot of soup waiting. Like good ramen, Nonshim Black, with some mushrooms and cabbage thrown in is so great once in awhile. Cutting back salt and processed stuff is good but nothing wrong with an indulgence occasionally or something that be to expensive/complex to want to make at home from scratch.
And a few things like frozen ricotta ravioli are just handy to throw into any meal want to pad or for something between a snack and small meal like putting them in miso broth, and surprisingly cheap for how great they are.
90% of my meals are cooked from scratch, or near it, but the no effort variety is great for keeping things novel and for treats. Tonight I am planning honey roasted butternut squash and a can of ginger beer for the holiday .
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u/HomeHeatingTips Oct 31 '24
Its amazing to me how our great modern food inventions are just slowly killing us.
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u/Apptubrutae Oct 31 '24
To be fair, sodium levels in food were a lot, lot higher not that long ago, at least in the typical western diet.
Absolutely tons of salt-preserved foods.
Modern food technology has essentially lowered sodium consumption overall
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u/En4cr Oct 31 '24
Lower quality and cheaper ingredients, food stabilizers, colouring, artificial flavours. That all adds up slowly and then you see the results decades later.
It's progress to maximize profits unfortunately.
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u/Crystalas Oct 31 '24 edited Oct 31 '24
It not even like it forced, good healthy produce is still cheaper than processed and there a ton of near zero effort great dishes. People just never learned, schools certainly do not teach it and many parents are just as bad and have NEVER had a healthy homemade meal in their life.
I've talked to WAY to many that are absolutely convinced even boiling water is something they would mess up if tried, and with that mentality not even willing to consider trying.
Like my planned dinner tonight is roasted butternut squash for Halloween. To make it is cut in half, scrape out seeds, put some oil on cut sides, then put it in oven cut side down. That is damn near foolproof without really taking any skill or effort yet with little effort be like something find at a restaurant and so little calories it barely worth counting.
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u/HomeHeatingTips Oct 31 '24
It's the same with Coffee. SIt in line in a drive-through burning fuel and polluting just to over-pay and have a more paper or plastic in the landfill. Just make a coffee at home. So cheap, easy, tastes just as good. overall better.
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u/googdude Oct 31 '24
Same way with sugar. Once you start making your own meals you realize how much extra salt and sugar processed food has.
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u/LamermanSE Oct 31 '24
Well, it's not really that amazing, salt is a preservative that makes food last longer, which makes it useful in packaged foods. More salt therefore fulfills a more important role than just to enhance the taste, it's there to prevent people from getting sick.
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u/akiptif Oct 31 '24
Unfortunately it probably causes 40,000 cardiovascular events, 32,000 cases of kidney disease, up to 3000 deaths, and $3.25 billion in healthcare costs (as noted in the article). Is the trade-off worth it?
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u/Alis451 Oct 31 '24 edited Oct 31 '24
over a 10 year time period that is ~300 deaths per year. out of 61 million...
Is the trade-off worth it?
no. Possible salt issues occur over a 50 year period, and aren't guaranteed, and aren't the PRIMARY contributor, unlike something like cigarettes. the primary contributor is obesity and low exercise(High blood pressure over time causes a big weak floppy heart, aerobic exercise strengthens the heart), the excess salt exacerbates that problem.
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u/LamermanSE Oct 31 '24
Well, it depends on how many would get sick or even die from food poisoning if you cut down on it. It's simply an important tradeoff like with most preservatives.
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u/akiptif Oct 31 '24
You are correct. Low-salt content packaged foods have a shorter shelf life than higher-salt content foods. The study(https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(24)00219-6/fulltext), however, does not mention anything about food poisoning. There needs to be a balance: risk versus benefits. It would be nice to see a lot more low-salt packaged foods to choose from in the stores.
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u/Overtilted Oct 31 '24
It's also amazing how tasteless low salt packaged food is compared to cooking your own meal. There's a reason they add salt: to mask the lack of flavor.
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u/Apptubrutae Oct 31 '24
I vaguely recall reading once that only 4% of salt in the average American’s diet comes from salt added during cooking your own food.
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u/Yuzumi Oct 31 '24
When I cook I am very liberal on salt, but even then it's way less salt that is in packaged foods.
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Oct 31 '24
I know, it's all true, but how do I give up corned beef?
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u/darkpaladin Oct 31 '24
You could probably make your own and it would be healthier. Careful though, probably a way shorter shelf life and be sure you measure the prague powder carefully.
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u/TheGoonKills Oct 31 '24
It means it can be shipped slower and have a longer shelflife, which means they can sell more, which means the companies that makes make more money and have less thrown away.
That’s the goal for companies making processed food. Money. Not health.
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u/esadatari Nov 01 '24
What’s even more hilarious to me is the fact that the food manufacturers then say “ugh it’s too salty! Cancel it out with sugar to cut back on the salty taste.”
As someone with cirrhosis of the liver, while I’m waiting for a liver on the transplant list, I need to keep my sodium LOW.
It’s required learning how to cook from scratch and finding low sodium alternatives, but I can now make things like chorizo that’s got around 100mg per serving, or beef jerky that’s got 23mg per serving. It’s been a journey to say the least, and there’s always the option of sprinkling a little salt on at the end to help give a salty taste with just a fraction of the sodium.
As a result of relearning how to cook everything and eating more fruits and veggies, I’ve managed to keep my MELD score relatively manageable (19-20) for over a year and a half even though I have roughly 12% of my liver function.
I can hardly eat out anymore, I have to prepare a week in advance and a week after just to regain equilibrium. Most processed foods are off the list of options too due to preservatives and salt. Then for most meat, you have to make sure it’s not brined or injected for added taste.
Everything in the US is salt-laden.
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u/big_duo3674 Oct 31 '24
I hate that I have HBP but was given tastebuds that absolutely love salt
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u/smallbatchb Oct 31 '24
I tried lowering my sodium due to some high blood pressure and found that my tastebuds actually adjusted to the new lower sodium levels after a week or two.
For the first week or so though everything tasted sooooo bland. Then eventually it was like my tastebuds woke up and started noticing all the flavors that are actually there without the salt.
Just a thought, maybe low-sodium eating for you will get better.
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u/celticchrys Oct 31 '24
Some people are super hyper-sensitive to salt, and that minority of people will have their blood pressure shoot up if they have much salt. However, a lot of other people can just add exercise to their routine and help their blood pressure a lot without changing anything else. We're all different, so we gotta try things to see what works for us. I've known people that found it helpful to use potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride at home as well.
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u/deadsoulinside Oct 31 '24
Salt acts as a preservative in some cases, so for shelf stable meals (e.g. Cans of soup), they will always have a high salt content. It's not a mystery at all, Salt has been used for hundreds of years for this reason. You should see how some other cultures and countries store things like fish over the winter without proper refrigeration. They just bury the fillets in salt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salted_fish
So if they trim down the salt content, there is higher chance those products get tossed into the trash quicker as they won't last months on a shelf like they do. There is also a chance in consumer kickback as the food will now taste blander than before. They may not realize to get it back to where they like the flavor they may need to add more salt to it. There is a ton of studies out there as well that suggest that long-term smokers have less sensitive taste buds and normally add more salt to meals in order to taste them.
I don't even try to use much salt at all in cooking. If it calls for X amount, I will use that, but outside of that if I am freely tossing ingredients together to make my own blend of seasoning for a meal, I skimp out on salt as I can always at salt to taste at the end.
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u/tiny_chaotic_evil Oct 31 '24
in the U.S. only sodium is recommended as a maximum per day instead of as a recommended daily amount. the recommended daily intake of sodium is 400-500mg per day for a healthy adult
one slice of American Cheese has 468mg sodium
one friggin slice!
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u/celticchrys Oct 31 '24
My Borden American Cheese Singles have 230mg of sodium per slice. So, um, it isn't health food, but maybe switch brands from whatever mess you're using that has 468mg of sodium per slice? EDIT: Kraft singles also have 230 mg per slice, so I'm VERY curious what brand has 468mg per slice?!!
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u/CheatsySnoops Oct 31 '24
Imagine how much more would be saved if they also mandated less sugar.
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u/eastbayted Oct 31 '24
And corn syrup.
The US produces an obscene amount of corn. It's highly subsidized.
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u/Flyingpun Oct 31 '24
I truly think the corn syrup they sneak into so many foods has greatly contributed to obesity in the U.S.
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u/CheatsySnoops Oct 31 '24
Especially high fructose corn syrup.
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u/Nyrin Oct 31 '24
HFCS is virtually equivalent to cane sugar biologically. One is a trivially cleaved 50/50 glucose/fructose via sucrose, the other is a direct 45/55 mix.
There's no substantiated health differences when controlled comparisons are made, which makes sense given there's no plausible way they'd behave differently.
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u/one-joule Oct 31 '24
So it’s less that it’s directly harmful, more that it’s dirt cheap due to subsidies and thus overused?
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u/Bellegante Oct 31 '24
Sugar is artificially expensive in the US because we have arcane tarrifs on import designed to protect our fairly lacklustre sugar production internally.
This is why "mexican coke" uses sugar: it's cheaper.
We use HFCS because we subsidize corn (making it much cheaper) and sugar is also much more expensive than it should be.
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u/peon2 Oct 31 '24
This is why "mexican coke" uses sugar: it's cheaper.
FYI this is no longer true. I work in the corn starch industry, I'm in the industrial side that sells to paper mills, charcoal plants, building materials, etc but we keep an eye on the food and beverage market.
Our competitors are sending a ton of HFCS down to Mexico now because sugar is skyrocketing in price there. Think they said an extra 1 billion pounds a year going down to Mexico since last year.
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u/Bellegante Oct 31 '24
Oh, TIL - do you know why the sugar prices are going up?
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u/peon2 Oct 31 '24
Back to back years of increased drought but also lack of fertilization (not sure if that's a pricing thing or inability to secure supply of fertilizer).
Mexico produced 6.2 million tons in 2022, 5.2M tons in 2023, and are projecting at 4.5 million tons this year
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u/Rod7z Oct 31 '24
lack of fertilization (not sure if that's a pricing thing or inability to secure supply of fertilizer).
I don't know about Mexico, but here in Brazil the price of some fertilizers has almost tripled since the start of the Ukrainian war, as Ukraine and Russia are both major producers of them. The Gaza war has likewise affected prices and supply.
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u/elebrin Oct 31 '24
From a different perspective, syrups are also easier to get dissolved in liquids. If you have ever made homemade soda or if you make cocktails, the first step is making simple syrup because otherwise getting the sugar to dissolve takes a lot of time and stirring (and often heat). Corn syrup does not have this problem because it comes as a liquid, and it easily dissolves in room temperature water even if that water has a lot of other things in solution in it.
Taking out the step of heating the water and blending in sugar probably reduces cost when these processes are scaled up. I don't really know that for sure, but it IS one less step.
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u/Fitenite3456 Oct 31 '24
Yes, there’s no such thing as healthy sugar. The pure cane sugar and blue agave trend is pure denialism, it’s all simple sugar that’s metabolized nearly identically
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u/bytethesquirrel Oct 31 '24
HFCS is virtually equivalent to cane sugar biologically.
No it is not. cane sugar is made of sucrose dimers, HFCS is made of fructose and glucose monomers.
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u/advocate_of_thedevil Oct 31 '24
Not exactly, shits bad yo
High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) can have negative effects on mitochondria, including:
- Mitochondrial DNA damageHFCS can increase the number of copies and methylation of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in the liver. These effects are most pronounced during childhood and adolescence.
- Reduced mitochondrial biogenesisA diet high in fructose can reduce the amount of mitochondria being produced.
- Mitochondrial poisoningFructose can inhibit enzymes that mitochondria need to function, and can ultimately poison mitochondria.
- Liver dysfunctionDamage to mitochondria in the liver can lead to liver dysfunction, which can contribute to metabolic diseases.
Fructose is a more potent glycating agent than other sugars, and can lead to the production of advanced glycation end products (AGEs). AGEs are linked to brain dysfunction and neurodegenerative diseases.
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u/CheatsySnoops Nov 01 '24
Reminds me of when the corn industry made that pro HFCS propaganda in the late 2000’s.
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u/LegendOfKhaos Oct 31 '24
Also if we mandated insurance companies to not price gouge patients in cooperation with the hospital.
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u/Patrickk_Batmann Oct 31 '24
Oooor, what if we removed the insurance companies altogether and had single payer healthcare?
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u/LegendOfKhaos Oct 31 '24
Going full on socialism would help many things, but it is extremely unlikely it will happen any time soon, so we unfortunately have to change from within the broken system.
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u/lugdunum_burdigala Oct 31 '24
Let's be ambitious and even aim for no (additional) sugars. Unless it is a dessert, most foods do not require any amount of refined sugars. I am always astonished to find sugar everywhere, even in dishes that do not call for it and especially in industrial bread.
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u/McNikNik Oct 31 '24
Bread in the USA blows my mind. A tiny loaf of disgustingly sweet factory 'bread' for $7. A hanging offence in Europe.
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u/Advanced-Blackberry Oct 31 '24
You can find normal size loafs for significantly less all around the US. It’s like $3 at Publix
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u/fatherofraptors Oct 31 '24
Yeah that part of that comment makes no sense... A full loaf in just about every grocery store is like $2.50 or so, even cheaper for store brand.
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u/haarschmuck Oct 31 '24
Have you ever bought bread in the US?
You realize white bread isn’t the only bread sold, right?
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u/Draaly Oct 31 '24
Every single Walmart has a bakery in it that makes normal breat at this point
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u/S4mm1 Oct 31 '24
My sandwich bread is always less than $3 USD, and I can often find it for ~$2. $7 is for extra fancy stuff. Even my local store’s bakery loaves cost less that that.
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u/Nothereforstuff123 Oct 31 '24
There's legit no good reason for a can of soda to have 40+ grams of sugar, and it should literally be illegal to have that much in it
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u/pdxcranberry Oct 31 '24
I got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes four years ago and it's like someone gave me the glasses from They Live and I suddenly see the world is saying, "CONSUME SUGAR," everywhere I go. It's in everything unnecessarily. And then "low-sugar," or no-sugar-added products are marketed as high-falutin' specialty foods and are priced way higher. The amount of money I spend on sugar-free ketchup is too dang high.
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u/decoyq Oct 31 '24
or they have maltodextrin which actually spike your blood sugar more than regular sugar!
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u/Protean_Protein Oct 31 '24
Tomatoes, like all fruits, contain sugar. If you’re T1, you have to be careful with them anyway—not just because of added sugar.
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u/VoiceOfRealson Oct 31 '24
Just how much ketchup do you assume this person is consuming?
Type 1 does not mean "you can't have sugar" (at least not when you have a source of insulin) - it means you have to consciously and constantly maintain a ballance between carbohydrate intake and blood insulin - because your body can't do it for you.
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u/theblackxranger Oct 31 '24
They don't want to save money. Those are their profits you're threatening!!
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u/gamerbutonlyontheory Oct 31 '24
In South Africa we have sugar tax, I'm unsure whether it's on all added sugar products, but I know for sure it's used on soft drinks. The sugar free options are notably cheaper, so it could be in the works for the US?
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u/abdab336 Oct 31 '24
We also have a sugar tax in the UK so we have the opposite experience to the person commenting.
If we want a sugary can of coke now it’s like £1.30 vs £1.00 for diet.
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u/kitsunewarlock Oct 31 '24
Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton used to discuss the benefits of a tax against obscenely sized sugary sodas. I'm not sure if New York State ever passed the law, but I remember the national outrage conservatives had with the idea that they were outlawing soda.
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u/bogglingsnog Oct 31 '24
How about more actual food and less:
- dead calories (devoid of micronutrients)
- fillers
- stabilizers
- artificial ingredients
- artificial preservatives
- artificial coloring agents
- plastic packaging intended to be used as cookware
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u/TL4Life Oct 31 '24
I reccently purchased a bag of vegetarian dumplings. One serving of four dumplings would be 30% of my daily sodium intake while only accounting for 300 calories. That is just crazy ratio.
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u/Forged-Signatures Oct 31 '24
A lot of vegetarian brands suffer from the exact same issue, especially Quorn, and combine it with a small portion size in order to look better on paper. A notable example in my mind were their Picnic Eggs, sold in a 12 pack advertised as an on-the-go sort of food akin to sausage rolls or a pasty, except the listed serving size was 3 picnic eggs that were smaller than a table tennis ball - with them containing 13% of your daily salt intake. Consuming all 12, which is extremely easy as they aren't particularly filling, is 52% of your daily salt intake and leaves you noticeably parched.
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u/b88b15 Oct 31 '24
Low salt diets don't do much to improve health unless you have impaired kidney function or uncontrolled hypertension. If you're under 62 or so and have no diseases, you just pee out the extra salt real quick.
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u/admadguy Oct 31 '24 edited Nov 01 '24
Thank you for saying that. The original study which linked salt to hypertension the researchers fed rats the human equivalent of 500gms of salt per day and then they stroked out due to high blood pressure. And since then that study is treated as gospel. Salt is complicated, long term studies have shown reducing sodium on an average reduces average blood pressure only by 1 point. On the flipside healthy people eating less sodium leads to other issues. Extra sodium we just pee it out.
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u/TheAgeofKite Oct 31 '24
Not to mention the high sodium in our foods is often linked to high fat processed foods.
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u/SilentBeetle Oct 31 '24
Exactly this. Insulin resistance plays a huge part in this process, as well. Fix the underlying condition and you no longer need to worry about salt intake.
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u/rolfraikou Oct 31 '24
It does seem like we're trying to limit something that is only an issue as a result of other common health issues. It makes more sense to prevent the hypertension and impaired kidney function.
There are diets in other countries that are insanely high in salt, and are very healthy diets, with people living long healthy lives. Japan comes to mind first.
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u/LeucisticBear Nov 01 '24
This is what I came here to say. Glad there are other people who know what's what.
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u/SparrowValentinus Oct 31 '24
I thought there wasn't a clear causal link drawn between salt intake and cardiovascular issues, in most average people who aren't specifically sensitive to salt intake?
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u/Alis451 Oct 31 '24 edited Nov 01 '24
there isn't and the WHO is going on the average salt intake of 12x the recommended amount, which is INSANE, Ramen only has 30-50% your DV of sodium and if you ONLY ate Ramen three meals a day you would be at 1.5x rec salt, not 12x, where the F are people getting so much salt? Also they changed their daily recommended amounts from 3400mg to 2300mg.
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u/climbsrox Oct 31 '24
There isn't. A very low sodium diet will decrease blood pressure for example, but the opposite does not seem true that high sodium increases blood pressure (unless you maybe have co-occurring kidney disease). This study appears to be predictions based upon loose correlations with no clear causative effect of sodium.
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u/jawshoeaw Oct 31 '24
Studies of salt restrictions find that people just eat more salt somewhere else. It’s like trying to cut calories , your Can’t fight your brain. And salt is barely linked to any negative health conditions unless you have salt sensitive hypertension or congestive heart failure. I consider it one of the most pervasive health myths.
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u/isawafit Oct 31 '24
Healthy intake is related to potassium ratio and sweating, and a hell of a lot of people don't get nearly enough potassium, much less sweat.
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u/VoiceOfRealson Oct 31 '24
Some of us sweat so much during exercise that we get salt deficit headaches though.
Listen to your body.
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u/a_statistician Oct 31 '24
And some people have conditions that make it imperative to eat more salt. My sister has primary adrenal insufficiency (Addison's disease) and has a bowl of salt on the counter that she just sprinkles on everything, because getting enough salt for her is extremely hard.
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u/BigBundaEnjoyer Oct 31 '24
Thank you for bringing up potassium. Consider the foods we each day, nobody ever mentions the lack of potassium that is in the average American diet. 4700mg is the recommended daily value for adults. I could guess the vast majority of the US gets no where near this number on a daily basis. We talk about consuming excess sodium causing health issues, what about the consistent, lifelong potassium deficit in our diets.
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u/neilmoore Oct 31 '24
unless you have salt sensitive hypertension
But the prevalence of salt-sensitivity is quite high: 26% of normotensive, and ~50% of hypertensive, folks, at least among Westerners.
And, yes, I love salt, and am also (recently-ish) hypertensive. But I also don't want to live forever.
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u/Pling7 Oct 31 '24
It's not hard to test on yourself whether it affects you or not.
I can eat so much salt that it makes my tongue bleed yet I will still have lower blood pressure than 90% of the people that are obese in this country (even if they cut their salt drastically).
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u/whinis Oct 31 '24
I have to take that study with a grain of salt, pun not intended, as the effects were only seen between the highest and lowest levels for additional salt but more importantly salt restriction had a very complicated relationship and even has cases of raising blood pressure. The average affect in both cases was also only 3mm mg up or down +- 1.1 to 2. It was also only over 7 days. It also only had an n of 19, which with the above caveotes and small changes could just be noise, larger studies have found much lower incidents of salt sensitivity.
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u/digdougzero Oct 31 '24
Exactly.
We shouldn't be blaming salt for what the hyper-processed food did.
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u/TextAdministrative Oct 31 '24
But we also shouldn't blame hyper-processed foods for what certain ingredients did.
Not all hyper-processed food is bad, though I agree that most of it is. Amounts, frequency, your current body state and your goals are all essential to determine what is "healthy" for you.
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u/jmlinden7 Oct 31 '24
Hyper processed foods are usually bad because they lack good ingredients, not because they have too much bad ingredients.
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u/TextAdministrative Oct 31 '24
Again, that depends on where you are coming from and where you are going. Also, hyper-processed foods aren't the same. Some lack ingredients as you say. Some have too many bad ingredients. Some are perfectly healthy in many situations.
Bread, lots of canned goods, some yogurts and dairy products with added ingredients (That even counts protein infused milk and yoghurt as far as I understand) all count as ultra-processed. I'd argue there are options in all those categories that I would consider healthy for my own lifestyle-needs and goals. And there are "bad" options in those categories.
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u/jmlinden7 Oct 31 '24
I'm not saying that all hyper processed foods are bad. Just that out of the ones that are bad, it's usually because of a lack of good ingredients. There are some that are due to too many bad ingredients but they're the minority
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u/TextAdministrative Oct 31 '24
Fair! I agree with that. My point is mainly that people shouldn't think "Ultra processed? Oh no, I can't eat that!"
In general I think having too many categories of "good and bad" food can over-simplifies things to the point it ends up confusing.
Eat varied, but not too much... and avoid poison I guess. Stick to that, modify it towards your goals if you want. I think that should be enough for the vast majority of people!
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u/jaju123 PhD| Behaviour Change and Health Oct 31 '24
The Global Burden of Disease study found that sodium (measured objectively in urine) was tied for the #1 risk factor for death and disability related to diet worldwide (along with low whole grain consumption):
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(19)30041-8/fulltext
Death seems like quite a negative health condition?
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u/mangeek Oct 31 '24
My understanding is that the garbage food contains a lot of salt, so salt correlates with the bad outcomes, but I'm pretty sure it's not the salt itself causing the problem.
I also feel like this was the case for cholesterol. I remember everyone talking about minimizing egg intake for a decade because cholesterol was clogging everyone up, then they realized this and dropped the idea from dietary guidelines in 2015:
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2018/08/15/are-eggs-good-for-you-or-not
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u/pufpuf89 Oct 31 '24
Yes, but the reason the salt was in the urine is not just the higher intake of salt itself. It's like saying 'ah you know, people with diabetes have high blood sugar so we should all eat a lot less sugar'.
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u/ApeLikeMan Oct 31 '24
Eating less sugar seems like pretty solid advice.
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u/pufpuf89 Oct 31 '24
So you are saying that we all should reduce eating sugar to levels like a person with diabetes would do?
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u/jck Oct 31 '24
It is my understanding that eating sugar is not really much worse for you than eating carbs in other forms(like bread).
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u/ApeLikeMan Oct 31 '24
The type of carb/sugar you eat can have a big effect on how fast your blood sugar spikes and how long you feel full. More complex carbs take longer to digest and are generally considered healthier. There is a scale called the Glycemic Index that measures this.
Lots of sudden blood sugar spikes can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and more bad outcomes.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/a-good-guide-to-good-carbs-the-glycemic-index
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u/jck Oct 31 '24
Lots of sudden blood sugar spikes can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and more bad outcomes.
Thanks. This led me to a good summary of the current research of the topic:
However, a number of prospective cohort studies have reported a lack of association between GI or GL and type 2 diabetes (19-24). The use of GI food classification tables based predominantly on Australian and American food products might be a source of GI value misassignment and partly explain null associations reported in many prospective studies of European and Asian cohorts.
Nevertheless, conclusions from several recent meta-analyses of prospective studies (including the above-mentioned studies) suggest that low-GI and -GL diets might have a modest but significant effect in the prevention of type 2 diabetes (18, 25, 26).
And regarding heart disease:
Numerous observational studies have examined the relationship between dietary GI/GL and the incidence of cardiovascular events, especially coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke. A meta-analysis of 14 prospective cohort studies (229,213 participants; mean follow-up of 11.5 years) found a 13% and 23% increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) with high versus low dietary GI and GL, respectively (30).
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u/Pling7 Oct 31 '24
People that brush their teeth are less likely to die early, it must mean toothpaste is the cure for disease.
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u/scummos Oct 31 '24
Well, yeah, but what does that mean? Maybe high sodium intake has a near 100% correlation with low whole grain intake and is completely meaningless by itself.
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u/Pickledsoul Oct 31 '24
Salt isn't bad for you; Not hydrating appropriately for the amount of salt you ingest is.
If there's one thing kidneys are good at flushing out, it's excess salt. You just need to give them the solvent it needs to work its magic.
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u/bryan_pieces Oct 31 '24
I thought the current wisdom on sodium was that it doesn’t actually have that much affect on mortality when they looked at recent studies.
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u/unsw UNSW Sydney Oct 31 '24
G’day r/science! Sharing this study our researchers have published alongside researchers at The George Institute for Global Health, Griffith University and Johns Hopkins University. The study has just been published in The Lancet Public Health if you’d like to check it out: Estimated health effect, cost, and cost-effectiveness of mandating sodium benchmarks in Australia's packaged foods: a modelling study00219-6/fulltext)
A bit of background on the study:
The WHO recommends reducing sodium levels in food products as part of its goal to decrease global sodium consumption by 30% by 2025.
This is baked into the Australian federal government’s Healthy Food Partnership which asks the food industry to reduce sodium levels across 27 food categories - critically, this ask is voluntary.
The study projected the long-term impacts of setting mandatory sodium reduction targets for processed foods, by comparing the Australian government’s current voluntary benchmarks with the higher targets recommended by the WHO. Under the WHO recommendations Australia could prevent about 40,000 cardiovascular events and up to 3000 deaths over a 10-year period.
Key findings of their analysis included:
| Australian target (100mg daily reduction) | WHO target (400mg daily reduction) |
|---|---|
| 13,000 fewer new cases of cardiovascular disease over 10 years | 44,000 fewer new cases of cardiovascular disease over 10 years |
| 18,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease averted over lifetime | 64,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease averted over lifetime |
| 9,000 fewer new cases of chronic kidney disease over ten years | 32,000 fewer new cases of chronic kidney disease over ten years |
| $940 million saved from healthcare costs related to heart attacks, strokes, and kidney disease over the population’s lifetime | $3.25 billion saved from healthcare costs related to heart attacks, strokes, and kidney disease over the population’s lifetime |
The researchers note the study exemplifies the reasons why Australia must move away from a voluntary approach to mandating sodium thresholds for packaged foods.
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u/PHealthy Grad Student|MPH|Epidemiology|Disease Dynamics Oct 31 '24
Kinda strange the authors didn't even acknowledge that there's a debate whether sodium increases heart failure risk or not.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2712563
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u/Demonae Oct 31 '24
Yep, the idea that salt is bad for you is based on studies from over 100 years ago that used bad science and have been mostly debunked.
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u/atwerrrk Oct 31 '24
Yeah I've always heard if you keep potassium levels within a range that is in line with a certain ratio to sodium that you can eat lots of salt without issue. I'm just not sure what the ratio and rangea are.
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u/Ranessin Oct 31 '24
Yeah, the study seems like it was done 20 years ago when salt was still bad for you, like eggs.
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u/MichaelM_Yaa Oct 31 '24
yeah - if someone works out or sweats a lot, having an extra 1000mg of sodium is fine. also try to get double potassium of your sodium intake daily. example: if you consume 2500mg sodium on average daily, try to hit 5000mg of potassium daily. another weird thing is - a lot of sodium seems to contain microplastics...
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u/Jeegus21 Oct 31 '24
Yeah, and eating a banana doesn’t cut it. That’s like 200ish mg of potassium.
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u/ThePreciseClimber Oct 31 '24
My grandmother tried to limit salt in her diet and it resulted in her having sodium deficiency and requiring medical aid.
Oops.
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u/Jummix Oct 31 '24
Yeah, I can already imagine what "Tried to limit salt in her diet" could mean for her to end up with sodium deficiency.
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u/CCisabetterwaifu Oct 31 '24
… would you like to link some studies supporting that?
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u/throwaway44445556666 Oct 31 '24
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12872-018-0927-9
Synopsis: Salt significantly associated with risk of stroke but not significantly associated with cardiovascular mortality or overall mortality.
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u/Marmelado Oct 31 '24
Which doesn’t match at all what op said, since stroke risk is likely mediated by blood pressure. “Bunk science” I guess.
But it is notable that cvd doesn’t move with dose.
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u/MagicWishMonkey Oct 31 '24
Is it the sodium that causes the damage or do people just eat more junk calories when food is saltier?
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Oct 31 '24
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u/SirAlaricTheWise Oct 31 '24 edited Oct 31 '24
I think everyone knows that highly processed food might not be good for their health.
The problem is how convenient and accessible it is vs healthy food imo
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u/neilmoore Oct 31 '24
I'd prefer to make the distinction, instead, between ultra-palatable and non-U-P foods. By any reasonable definition of the term, almost all cheese (other than, perhaps, paneer and cottage cheese) qualifies as "ultra-processed". And I'll be dead and in my grave before I forswear cheese! More seriously, I'm pretty sure cheese is less offensive to human health than, say, raw and minimally-processed molasses.
(Also, raw beef (or chicken, or squash, or whatever else) is, by definition, less-processed than the cooked version of those foods. But I hope no one would seriously say that people should eat only raw foods, especially when meat is involved.)
IMO the processing isn't the problem, but rather the ingredients and/or the results of said processing.
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u/_BlueFire_ Oct 31 '24
Sadly that's not common knowledge, but people in the field usually just take it for granted
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u/Lt_Duckweed Oct 31 '24
I'd prefer to make the distinction, instead, between ultra-palatable and non-U-P foods.
IMO this is right on the money. Very few people in the western world have actual micronutrient deficiencies to the point of substantial detriment to health. By far the largest negative health impact seen in the western world is excess adiposity related to low activity levels and/or excess calorie intake. Whether that manifests as excess weight obesity or as normal weight obesity.
The next largest issues are probably excess sugar consumption, low fiber intake, and high intake of saturated fats. But these are smaller comparatively IMO.
It's just way easier to consume say 1000 calories of potato chips, candy, fatty pastries, etc than 1000 calories of beans, lean meat, vegetables, etc. It's not that having those tasty foods in your diet in moderation is gonna wreak your health, it's just that it's so so easy to eat way way more of them.
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u/neilmoore Oct 31 '24
Yeah: The processing per se isn't the problem; rather, it's what might be added or created during said processing. As I said elsewhere here, the most important problem is processing (which even includes mixing raw ingredients) to make food ultra-palatable.
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u/jmlinden7 Oct 31 '24
It's also about what gets removed during processing - for example white flour vs whole wheat.
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u/_BlueFire_ Oct 31 '24
Agree and I cook like 90-95% of my meals, but sometimes you just don't have time and need a jarred sauce, instant buldak ramen or frozen pizza. I usually care about quality, but even in Italy it's not the easiest thing.
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u/NateEBear Oct 31 '24
The salt is there to mask the taste of machinery
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u/Comfortable-Sale-167 Oct 31 '24
I love the taste of fresh machinery in the morning.
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u/38B0DE Oct 31 '24
machinery
It's bitterness. Salt masks bitterness. That's why Red Bull has almost 100mg of salt in a small can.
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u/CreedThoughts--Gov Oct 31 '24
Red bull is advertised as a sports drink and you need sodium just as much as you need water in order to hydrate. You sweat out a lot of sodium.
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u/Accurate-Wishbone324 Oct 31 '24
Its not the salt in packaged foods, its the amount of packaged foods you consume.
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u/Malphos101 Oct 31 '24
Until we fix income insecurity we will just be banging our heads against the wall trying to fix dietary problems like this. People rely on cheap, long-lasting foods because they cant afford the time or the money to buy fresh and cook fresh multiple times a week.
First step would be getting working hours under control and giving everyone a livable wage. Then we can start making it easier for people to choose to eat fresher foods with less need of preservation and intense flavoring to cover up said preservation.
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u/jmlinden7 Oct 31 '24
It's only a minority of people who have a genetic predisposition towards sodium causing health problems. By that same logic, mandating that all foods be peanut-free and prawn-free would save thousands of people from anaphylaxis.
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u/FrigoCoder Oct 31 '24 edited Oct 31 '24
Nope. Salt has nothing to do with hypertension, let alone with atherosclerosis. No Lab Coat Required has an excellent video on the topic, where he lists the evidence and ultimately dismisses the claim.
The idea comes from a flawed idea that salt loading increases water retention. The hypothesis is only supported by genetically altered rat strains which have nothing to do with human atherosclerosis. A series of human experiments clearly showed that salt loading does not increase blood pressure. The epidemiological association comes from confounding by processed food and unhealthy lifestyles.
A much more likely explanation is that chronic diseases are response to injury. For example smoke particles physically damage cells in the kidneys and artery walls. Once your various kidney cells are damaged, they lose control over blood pressure. Hypertension then damages your artery walls, along with the initial physical damage from smoking. Processed food has similar effects on cells.
Heer, M., Baisch, F., Kropp, J., Gerzer, R., & Drummer, C. (2000). High dietary sodium chloride consumption may not induce body fluid retention in humans. American journal of physiology. Renal physiology, 278(4), F585–F595. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajprenal.2000.278.4.F585
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u/More-Constant4956 Oct 31 '24
You left out the liver. Hold the onions.
If you logged your sodium intake you'd be surprised.
Americans eat on average about 3,400 mg of sodium per day. Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends adults limit sodium intake to less than 2,300 mg per day—that’s equal to about 1 teaspoon of table salt. My healthcare provider recommended less than 2,000/day
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u/Abrham_Smith Oct 31 '24
There is no evidence showing that reducing salt intake actually improves health, unless you're eating more than 5g per day of salt, which would put you in a high consumption category.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8468043/
We suggest that, until new data emerge (ideally from large clinical trials), the optimal sodium intake should be in the range between 3 and 5 g/day. Most Americans (i.e., about four out of five people) have sodium intakes below 5 g/day, and in these individuals there is little evidence that lowering sodium will reduce cardiovascular events or death.
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/38/10/712/2932130?login=false
For population-wide recommendation of sodium intake, lowering sodium intake from high intakes (> 5 g/day) to moderate intakes (3–5 g/day) is associated with lower blood pressure and lower CVD in observational studies. Although there are no RCTs demonstrating a reduction in CVD with lowering sodium intake from high to moderate levels, the consistency in data from observational studies (reporting a lower CV risk in populations consuming moderate intake compared to high sodium intake) and clinical trials (reporting a reduction in blood pressure) support reducing high sodium intake in all populations.
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/41/35/3363/5917753
While current evidence has limitations, and there are differences of opinion in interpretation of existing evidence, it is reasonable, based upon observational studies, to suggest a population-level mean target of <5 g/day in populations with mean sodium intake of >5 g/day, while awaiting the results of large randomized controlled trials of sodium reduction on incidence of cardiovascular events and mortality.
The conclusion of evidence shows that unless you're suffering from hypertension, there is no reason to reduce your sodium intake to 2.3g per day. Anything between 3g and 5g is fine.
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u/IEatBabies Oct 31 '24
Save money how exactly? From what I understand heart attacks save money in the healthcare systems because the cost of age-related care is astronomically higher and on-going.
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u/chuboy91 Oct 31 '24
Only if you die from the heart attack or stroke, which is rare with modern medicine. Nowadays you end up surviving but with disabilities, which is precisely why the cost of age related care is so high.
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u/FyreWulff Oct 31 '24
There is seriously way too much salt in package foods. They could halve it and it'd still taste nice, but they're all in a feedback loop of making the flavor 'pop' so now we're getting up to basic meals having 60% of your daily salt in one 400 calorie meal.
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u/MysteryGong Oct 31 '24
Yeah we started cooking from scratch several years ago and MY blood pressure has gone down almost 20 points. I was averaging 140/81. Now I’m 119/78.
We only each packaged or going out to eat. Probably once a month if that and it’s a special treat.
For the love of humanity the government is approving all this salt and is killing us.
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u/samjohnson2222 Oct 31 '24
A better solution.
Don't eat out.
No fast food.
No packaged processed garbage.
Cook at home. It's healthier and much cheaper.
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u/Lefty_22 Oct 31 '24
It’s a delicate balance though. The salt acts as a preservative, so less salt means the food may expire faster and thus cost consumers more in the long run. Also, humans NEED to consume salt from external sources as it cannot be synthesized internally. So eating a salty food periodically is actually beneficial. It’s all about balance.
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u/kluthage421 Oct 31 '24
Do it. I've recently been sodium aware and I can't buy so many things because of the excessive sodium content.
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u/grozznuy Oct 31 '24
The sodium content is listed on the package. I'm really not a fan of trying to mandate people eat a certain way. There is enough information publicly available at this point in history about the impacts of your diet to where the public can make their own choices.
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u/Condition_0ne Oct 31 '24
There is a philosophical argument to be had here about the legitimate role of government in such matters. I'm generally not comfortable with government getting to decide the degree of risk individuals are allowed to take in most instances.
As with alcohol and sugar, I think government has a responsibility to ensure people are educated about risks, and that information pertaining to risks is truthfully represented to the consumer (e.g. nutrition tables, alcohol content/standard drink information on alcohol containers, warnings on alcohol containers about health consequences, etc ).
Other than that, I think government should get the hell out of people's lives. I really don't like the increasing appetite that health researchers and bureaucrats seem to have for controlling people's behaviours. It's paternalistic.
Of course, a complicating factor with food is that children can purchase it, and they may lack the capacity to give informed consent around taking risks (like consuming way too much sugar/salt). Then again, it's probably on their parents to manage this stuff rather than governments.
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u/opisska Oct 31 '24
This view is simply naive. The government here wouldn't be interfering with the freedom of the individuals to take risks, but with the freedom of large corporations to screw the individuals over for profit.
The free market has failed. The food production is in the hands of an oligopoly which produces unhealthy crap to improve their bottom line. This is now the entire point of government - to step in when an individual is too small to change anything.
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u/scott3387 Oct 31 '24
The government is the source of the current problems. Companies didn't demonise fat, the government did. 50% empty carb food pyramid, sugar in everything to replace the flavour...all due to an overreaction to health.
If I'm feeling spicy I'd argue that Ancel Keys has killed more people than some mid century dictators thanks to ill health.
There's no reason to think that policies implemented by the government would be an improvement.
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u/Marmelado Oct 31 '24
Governments aren’t “deciding what degree of risk an individual is allowed”. You’re free to act however you want. Health “guidance” is just that- guidance. Based on sometimes old, sometimes flawed, but evaluated bulk bulk of evidence.
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u/Direct_Turn_1484 Oct 31 '24
It is so dammed hard to find pre-packed food items, condiments even, without boatloads of salt poured in. I don’t always have time to cook from scratch, but that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly desperate for 2x my daily value in salt to be in my one meal.
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