I "salt" almost everything I eat – from your ordinary scrambled eggs in the morning
to Tostitos chips that are already processed with high sodium concentrations. My mom says that my favorite snack is salt with a bit of popcorn on it. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when Jeffrey Steingarten, the author of The Man Who Ate Everything, reassured me that it is okay to eat as much salt as I want.
He explained that salt is necessary and important in life. It has been a vital part of our diet, designation of monetary value, and history on earth. And if I didn’t eat salt I would probably be a “bloodthirsty maniac who makes Abu Nidal look like a scoutmaster” (Steingarten 202). (See: Wiki-Nidal). But can I really eat as much salt as I do? It can't be healthy. To my dismay, Steingarten never really gave me a straight answer.
His main argument was disproving the association between salt and sickness, rather than proving the association between salt and healthiness. Steingarten disproved the association between salt and hypertension with citations from the 1988 Intersalt research study. Obesity and alcohol are more closely tied than sodium is to high blood pressure. Moreover, the salt-blood pressure correlation is not applicable to 92 percent of the human population (Steingarten 201). Here's to hoping I'm not in the eight percent!
He explained that salt is necessary and important in life. It has been a vital part of our diet, designation of monetary value, and history on earth. And if I didn’t eat salt I would probably be a “bloodthirsty maniac who makes Abu Nidal look like a scoutmaster” (Steingarten 202). (See: Wiki-Nidal). But can I really eat as much salt as I do? It can't be healthy. To my dismay, Steingarten never really gave me a straight answer.
His main argument was disproving the association between salt and sickness, rather than proving the association between salt and healthiness. Steingarten disproved the association between salt and hypertension with citations from the 1988 Intersalt research study. Obesity and alcohol are more closely tied than sodium is to high blood pressure. Moreover, the salt-blood pressure correlation is not applicable to 92 percent of the human population (Steingarten 201). Here's to hoping I'm not in the eight percent!
As convincing as Steingarten’s argument is against the salt-blood
pressure correlation, I was still skeptical of his bold statement that we could eat as much salt as we so desired. I grew up hearing and seeing warnings against high-sodium foods everywhere, and automatically believed "salt = bad." (Which apparently didn't stop me, but made me that much more curious about the truth.) Consequently, I decided to
search the web to shed more light on this topic. Unfortunately, I could not find a concrete answer. People are still debating the gravity of the salt-blood pressure correlation to
this day. According to experimental evidence, the link between salt and health
risk remains to be established via more extensive intervention studies (Freedman and Petitti Study 15). I also
found a Harvard University nutrition study that agreed with Steingarten.
Oppositely, I found articles that supported the salt-hypertension correlation,
such as one from CNN Health (CNN Health).
Lastly, I found an article in Medical
News Today that doesn’t take an argumentative stance on the issue, claiming
that salt reduction does help lower blood pressure “a tiny bit” (Medical News Today).
In conclusion, it seems if you have a well-balanced diet (salt and alcohol in moderation) and keep active, you have a better chance of
avoiding high blood pressure. But sometimes there’s no avoiding it – after all
you may be in the eight percent of salt sensitive people. Hence, I would say a
precautionary outlook regarding the salt-hypertension correlation is the way to
go. Maybe I will try to limit my salt intake…a little, at least…
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