salt and sodium

Denny's is kind of a joke. Its open 24-7, so it's the cliché late night hangout for drunks, burnouts and stoners looking to sober up.

It's greasy, sinful comfort food. No frills. Just all the stuff that will kill: bacon, sausage, syrup, fried potatoes, butter and salt--lots of salt!

And, its because of the excessive salt content in Denny's food, that one activist group has filed suit against the restaurant chain.

You wouldn't expect uncooked chicken to be a significant source of sodium, would you? But apparently it can be. And, this is before you add any seasoning to it in your own home.

Injecting raw chicken with saltwater solutions during processing is actually a widespread practice in the poultry industry. Manufacturers say it makes for tastier, juicier meat.

In college, my roommates and I had a desk drawer stuffed shut with extra hot mustard, duck sauce and soy sauce packets.

Now, despite soy's salty reputation, food scientists believe adding soy sauce to food could cut salt without sacrificing flavor.

Swapping soy into salad dressings and soup is capable of dropping salt content by 17% to 50%.

So why are kids suffering from kidney stones?

Perhaps April is the month for dispelling health and diet myths. After Mike questioning the mythical daily water requirement, I was interested to read a post on the Guardian's food blog questioning whether salt really is so bad for you.

A British study points to excess sodium as being a "hidden factor in the obesity epidemic" (quote: Graham MacGregor, a co-author of the study). The theory being that salty foods make kids thirsty, after which they reach for a high-sugar, high calorie drinks. The cycle continues, resulting in inevitable weight gain.

The Food and Drug Administration recently announced it will hold a hearing to consider changing the way it currently regulates salt. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has asked the FDA to make some serious changes, including putting limits on salt in processed foods, and requiring health messages about salt and sodium.

Is this proposal unreasonable, or is it time to stop treating salt as a "food generally recognized as safe?"

UK lobby group CASH has compared the level of salt in sandwiches with potato chips (or crisps as they are called in the UK).

Their discoveries may surprise you.

Recently the NY Times looked at the level of sodium consumption - noting that "that 150,000 lives could be saved annually if sodium levels in packaged and restaurant foods were cut in half." Americans are consuming 3,300 mg per day - much of it coming from processed foods.

It seems fitting that over the last few weeks I have been trying out a salt substitute: AlsoSalt.

The CSPI (Center For Science in the Public Interest) is in the news again. They have filed a lawsuit against the federal government (FDA): ...the CSPI renewed a lawsuit first filed in 1983 to ask federal courts to force the Food and Drug Administration to declare sodium a food additive instead of categorizing it as "generally recognized as safe." This would give the agency the authority to set limits for salt in foods