I've recently been forced -- er, introduced -- to a low sodium lifestyle. You can read more about it at my new blog, http://www.saltlostsavor.blogspot.com

In the meantime, I'd like to share one entry from that blog here.

We need salt to live. I'll go into that in another blog. Right now, I want to talk about the reasons why excess salt is bad for us.

1. It causes water weight. The more salt you eat, the more water you will retain. The more water retained, the more pressure internally. This is why many people feel bloated -- it's because of all that water they are holding on to.




2. It causes damage to the kidneys, which in turn increases the risk of high blood pressure.




3. It effects the amounts of calcium in the body, which increases the risk of osteoporosis.




4. Salt thickens the blood, which makes it harder to pump, which makes the heart work harder than it's naturally designed to do. As this goes on, the heart can become enlarged. Just as a muscle becomes larger as it works, the heart becomes larger as it works harder to pump blood. So the heart is working harder, pushing the blood harder, and that increase in pressure damages the vascular system of the kidneys, causing “hypertensive nephrosclerosis,” a major cause of kidney disease.




5. Salt has been linked to asthma and to cancer of the stomach.




6. Salt causes high blood pressure which makes a person three times more likely to develop heart disease or to have a stroke. They are twice as likely to die from these conditions.




7. High blood pressure also leads to eye damage.

Right now, the average person is eating around 6,000 mg. of salt a day. This doesn't include people who eat fast food regularly. If you get a Big Mac, fries and drink, you've just consumed 1,970 mg. of sodium right there, in one meal. The premium grilled chicken club alone has 1,720 mg. In fact, many of the salads now served at fast food restaurants contain more sodium than the hamburgers. The crispy chicken Caesar salad at McDonald's contains 3,500 mg. of sodium. That's completely scary!

Ideally, you should eat between 400 and 1,000 mg. per day. It will take work, it will take diligence and reading labels and cooking from scratch. But I've survived so far, and I say it can be done!