Is too Much Sodium Killing Us?
What do we eat? Do we really know? In these hectic times it’s so easy to run into the grocery store and grab anything off the shelf that looks tasty. Pressed for time we fly through the fast food chain’s drive- thru because it is close and seems easy. In the amount of time that it takes to chop up a fresh salad, we have chosen to poison ourselves with too much processed foods instead, not realizing what it’s doing to us, but rather trusting the FDA and manufacturers to determine what is good for us. As we keep our heads in the sand, they will keep poisoning our food with excess sodium. For profit, the food industry is killing us, and they know it!
Let’s take a closer look at the “miracle” ingredient, called salt, that accommodates the coffers of the food industry “Big Boys”.
Sodium
According to American Heritage Dictionary, the organic definition of sodium is: a soft,
light, extremely malleable silver, white, metallic element (mineral) that reacts explosively with
water. Sodium is naturally abundant in combined forms, especially in common salt, and it is used
in a wide variety of industrial compounds (Houghton 1161).
“Reacts explosively with water”? But wait; aren’t we drilled to drink eight glasses of water per day? How is that reacting with the sodium that we are consuming? Let’s break down the facts about this mineral and see exactly what it does to us.
We will start with the most common sodium ingested. You may think that it is table salt but I am sorry to say that it is not. Rense.com studied labels for us and discovered MSG in almost everything. “MSG was in everything! The Campbell’s soups, Doritos, Lays flavored chips, Top Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper, Heinz canned gravy, Kraft salad dressings, especially the ‘healthy low fat’ ones (Unknown).
MSG
MSG stands for Mono (single) Sodium (salt) Glutamate (sticky). Basically one sodium atom is stuck to the amino acid of glutamate (Clarke). MSG is called a flavor enhancer and indeed it is. It has no nutritional value, it is a man made from glutamic acid which is an amino acid found in all complete proteins. MSG is considered an “Excitotoxin”. In Killing us softly, Carol Cover provides us with this quote directly out of “Excitotoxins: the Taste that Kills” By Dr Russel Braylock: “When you consume Monosodium Glutamate, your blood levels [of MSG] can reach twenty-fold higher than normal. A brain does not know how to handle twenty-fold higher than normal MSG. Neither [do] the liver, the muscles or the other organ systems.[The brain] wasn’t designed that way.” (Cover)
Sodium Benzoate
Sodium Benzoate is a preservative used as a mold inhibitor and most commonly found in soft drinks, juices, pickles, and sauces. Industrial preparation of Sodium Benzoate is very cheaply produced (McCoy).
Table Salt
This is a common salt. Your everyday “Morton’s” is made up of thirty-nine percent pure sodium and sixty-one percent chlorine, some with a little iodine thrown in to prevent gout (Horneth). One teaspoon of table salt has 2,325 milligrams (mg) of sodium! This is the salt that we add to sometimes already sodium laden foods. Unfortunately throwing out the salt shaker may not be enough to significantly reduce your sodium intake.
The Benefits of Sodium
Like water, sodium is essential for our body; and like water too much is dangerous. (Think of drowning.) It helps to maintain fluid balance in our system. It also plays a big role in muscle control by influencing the contraction and relaxation of the muscles. Sodium helps to transmit our nerve impulses ("mayoclinic.com").
So how much do we really need?
According to the 2005 guidelines for Americans, The Mayo Clinic reported that we should not exceed 2,300 mg if we are healthy and no more than 1,500mg if we have high blood pressure, kidney disease, diabetes, African American or middle aged or older ("mayoclinic.com").
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What happens when we get too much?
If we have a heart condition, we know that the first thing our doctor will tell us is to cut back on salt. What other harm does it do to us?
Have you ever seen what happens when you pour salt on a slug? That is pretty close to what happens to us internally. Ultimately it dehydrates us. How do you feel after you have eaten a bag of chips?
According to The World Health Organization (WHO) sixty-two percent of all strokes and forty-nine percent of all coronary heart disease events are attributed to high blood pressure. In other words; excess sodium is one of the leading causes of death world-wide (Bartholomew)!
Sodium is also the leading cause of congestive heart failure. Here is how it happens: “Your kidneys naturally balance the amount of sodium stored in the body for optimal health. When sodium levels are low, your kidneys naturally hold on to the sodium. When sodium levels are high your kidneys excrete the excess into the urine.
“If for some reason, your kidneys can’t eliminate enough sodium, the sodium starts to accumulate in your blood. Because sodium attracts and holds water, your blood volume increases. Increased blood volume males your heart work much harder to move more blood through your blood vessels, which increases pressure to your arteries. Such diseases as congestive heart failure, cirrhosis, and chronic kidney disease can make it hard for your kidneys to keep sodium levels balanced.
“Some bodies are more sensitive to the effects of sodium than others. If you are sodium sensitive, you retain sodium more easily, leading to fluid retention and increased blood pressure.” ("mayoclinic.com")
As sodium comes in many forms it can be tricky to determine how much you are actually getting. The obvious forms are table salt, Mono sodium glutamate (MSG), sodium bicarbonate, sea salt, and sodium benzoate (The real killer!) Manufacture labeling has made matters even more confusing.
In the article “Killing Us Softly” (Cover) letsbewell.com tells us about all of the hidden ingredients in products that we eat daily. Here is a basic list of some words to watch out for:
Glutamic acid
Glutamate
Hydrolyzed protein
Sodium caseinate
Autolyzed yeast
Yeast nutrients
Yeast food
“Natural flavoring” (My favorite)
Salt Content in Foods
The Mayo Clinic shows us an eye opening table of how we receive salt portions. Their table states that five percent is added while cooking, six percent is added while eating, twelve percent come from natural sources such as vegetables, and a whopping seventy-seven percent comes from processed and prepared foods. ("mayoclinic.com")
Some major culprits are: sausage products, salad dressing, parmesan items, gravies,
dipping sauces, seasoned fries, flavored snack chips (especially chips with cheesy powder),
canned soups, cold cuts, and soy sauce (Horneth).
E211 the big danger
One sneaky form of sodium that probably deserves its own study is bottled soda and sugary fruit drinks, particularly the ones with added vitamin c. this would include: fruit punch, orange soda, Sprite, 7up, and Mountain Dew. These products contain sodium benzoate. When mixed with vitamin C the negative effects to our system is very powerful (Hickman).Also referred to as E211, sodium benzoate has been added to our beverages for years to help prevent mold. (Therefore it increases shelf life.) There is concern that E211 may cause cancer, cirrhosis, and it may even alter our DNA (Hickman). “The independent” is even claiming that E211 may even cause Leukemia, Parkinson’s disease, and liver damage. They also provide a link for Class Action Lawsuits (Hickman).
E211 does occur naturally in cranberries, apples, dairy products, cinnamon, and cloves. (Naturally is the key.) According to inchem.org; “When Sodium Benzoate occurs naturally, you receive about 40mg. When used synthetically, you get two-thousand mg’s (Griff).
Concerned about these facts, Professor of microbiology, Peter Piper researched E211 and reported that “These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to the DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it.
“The Mitochondria consume oxygen to give you energy. If you damage it, then cells start to malfunction very seriously. There is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to this damage, above all the whole process of aging (Mccoy).
Why do Manufactures add so much sodium?
There are two main reasons that excess sodium is added to processed and prepared foods in restaurants and fast food chains.
The biggest reason is shelf life. Salt is a preservative so this makes sense from a financial point of view. The longer a box of cookies can stay on the shelf, the more chance it has of getting sold. The question is, why does the FDA allows them to dump in so much? If cereal and bread can have twice the shelf life with a mere fifty mg’s of sodium, why do most cereals have four times that amount ("Chew on This")?
The second major reason is taste. Taste benefits the food industry in two ways: flavor and thirst. If you ever have had a bowl of Raman Noodles without the flavor packet you probably noticed that it tastes like pure cardboard. (For research purposes I did this.) When you add the flavoring suddenly it’s delicious, almost addicting. That brothy, salty taste is now being recognized as basic taste called Umami this makes us crave foods that would otherwise be tasteless, or taste horrible (Fonseca and Buckley 91).
The other benefit of the taste angle is thirst. If you go to a bar for your favorite draft beer, you usually get a “complementary” bowl of salty nuts or chips. The taste of alcohol and salty chips go hand in hand, each encouraging the consumption of the other. The salty treats keep you thirsty so you buy more drinks and the drinks keep you hungry so you eat more treats, thus buying even more drinks. So on it goes with our health being the biggest loser of all.
What can we do?
We may not be able to stop this crime altogether, but it won’t hurt to let our congressmen and the industry itself know, that we do know, about it.
The best thing that we can do is educate ourselves by reading labels and comparing sodium levels. Shopping the perimeter of the grocery stores as much as possible also helps because the highest sodium content foods are in the boxes and bags in the middle isles. Also striving to stay in the 2000mg of sodium per day range will make a big difference.
So like water, please don’t drown in salt. Especially not saltwater!
Thanks for reading,
Suzy Levi
Works Cited
"Amazing facts about salt." Chew on This. N.p., 02 22 2006. Web. 6 May 2011. <www.chewonthis.org.uk>.
Bartholomew, Courtenay. "Madam Minister, salt is killing us.." Trindad Express. N.p., 05 04 2011. Web. 6 May 2011. <http://trindadexpress.org>.
Houghton, Miffin. American Heritage Dictonairy. New Jersey: Houghton, 1982. 1161. Print.
Clarke, Dave. "The Salt Added to our food is killing us." Ramblings. N.p., 2010. Web. 6 May 2011. <http://ramblingsdc.net>.
Cover, Carol. "Killing Us SoftleyII." Let's Be Well. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 May 2011. <www.letsbewell.com>.
Fonseca, Brenda, and James Buckley. Psychology an Exploration. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2009. 91. Print.
Griff, . "Soda Ingredients Linked to Cirrhosis and Cancer." Organic Consumers Association. N.p., 05 29-2007. Web. 6 May 2011. <http://organicconsumers.org>
Hickman, Martin. "Caution: Some soft drinks may seriously harm your health." The Independent. Independent Co.Uk, 05/27/2007. Web. 5 May 2011. <http://www.independent.co.uk>
Horneth, Carl. "What Foods To Avoid." MSG Truth.org. N.p., 20011. Web. 5 May 2011. <http://www.msgtruth.org/avoid.htm>
Mccoy, Louise. "Soda Alert: Sodium Benzoate, A Preservative Used In Sodas, Found To Cause DNADamage." PureInsight.org. Pure Insight, 2010. Web. 5 May 2011. <http://www.pureinsight.org>.
"Nutrition and healthy eating." mayoclinic.com. Mayo Clinic, 05/22/2010. Web. 5 May 2011. <Mayoclinic.com>. Unknown, . "poisoning America." Rence. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 May 2011. <Rence.com>.
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