Looking
through my daily food journal I noticed something that I have known about
myself for a long time, I love sodium. Sodium manifests itself in anything and
everything, and while I may love this habit at the moment, it has the potential
to carry me down a destructive path ending in possible hypertension and
cardiovascular disease. To give you some perspective into the world of sodium,
“Many processed
foods contain 1000 mg or more per serving, while typical restaurant meals
contain 2300 to 4600 mg of sodium (TABLE).”(JAMA), yet the NHBPEP(National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s National high Blood pressure Education
Program) recommends a sodium intake of less than 2400mg/d. The disconnect
between what people in the United States are recommended to consume and what
they actually choose to consume is enormous, and because of this disconnect, a
very prevalent issue has arisen in todays society over the risk of prolonged
overconsumption of the delicious ingredient sodium. “Both
the social and economic burdens of the present high salt intakes are huge, as
salt accounts for a big proportion of high blood pressure levels, strokes, and
heart attacks in all industrialized communities.”(ScienceDirect), and we the
people are the ones facilitating these companies to produce sodium induced
items because we are the ones buying and promoting their product.
Personally,
I feel as though I am one of sodium’s biggest promoters/supporters, eating at
least one bag of snack mix made up of 5 servings
each containing 310mg of sodium, I consume 1550mg of sodium as a snack. I don’t
think you understand what I just said, 1550mg of sodium AS A SNACK! I am a
college student eating “restaurant meals” at least twice a day because of the
cafeteria, meaning, I am consuming somewhere from 2300mg to 4600mg times two
plus 1550mg of sodium at a MINIMUM. Thinking about how long I have possibly
been consuming this much sodium is beginning to disturb me more and more. “Dietary
surveys have also indicated that in 1999 to 2000 salt intakes in the United
States were remarkably higher than in the late 1970s.11 It is of
considerable public health interest that, since the late 1980s and early 1990s,
the age-adjusted prevalence of high blood pressure has also shown a turn to a
marked increase in the US population aged 20 years and older.”(ScienceDirect)
Being so young I have an almost invincible attitude feeling as though no matter
what I do to my body, it will have the ability to fix or heal whatever harm I
do. This idea is beginning to fade as I learn the truths that the food industry
tries to hide from you, like the health consequences associated with high
sodium diets/products.
This
topic is very interesting for me because of my obsession for any and every
sodium induced product, if I try to keep up the pace I am consuming sodium, I
will have serious blood pressure as well as hypertension issues. The Finnish
initiated “the progressive
decrease in salt intake, which has continued in Finland for 25 to 30 years, has
played an important role both in the impressive fall in the average blood
pressure of the population and in the pronounced 75% to 80% decrease in both
stroke and coronary heart disease mortality in the population younger than 65
years.”(ScienceDirect) Personally, being able to see the direct consequences of
too much sodium intake shows a great point of view of the situation, yet
actually being able to statistically show the advantages of sodium reduction in
a certain culture is much more convincing and moving. If I knew that by eating
one less bag of Gardetta’s each day “that I could possibly increase my life
expectancy 5-6 years like the Finnish population did during the past 25-30
years”(ScienceDirect Paraphrase), I can tell you 100% that I would abandon my
obsession with sodium completely. What will you do with the information that
has been presented before you?
Sources:
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