I have normal blood pressure.  Do I need to be concerned about salt in my diet?

People who don’t have high blood pressure but are at risk for developing it need to be careful with their salt intake.  Risk factors include family history of hypertension or being overweight, African American, older, or salt sensitive.

How do you know if you’re salt sensitive?  Unfortunately, you don’t really know until you develop high blood pressure.  About 1/3 of all people are salt sensitive, so why take the chance?  Besides the blood pressure issue, too much salt when you’re younger can be unhealthy for your bones, leading to osteoporosis as you age.  So whether or not you have normal blood pressure, you should be monitoring your salt intake.

So how much salt is too much?  Doctors at the National Institutes of Health recommend keeping daily sodium consumption to below 2,400 mg per day. Lower than that is even better.

Keep in mind that most of the salt we eat is not added by us when we cook or use the salt shaker at the table.  Most of it comes in processed foods such as canned soups and sauces, chips, luncheon meats, nuts, pickles, etc.

Read labels carefully.  Besides looking for sodium, look for terms such as monosodium glutamate and disodium phosphate.  And don’t rely on your taste buds to alert you to high salt content.  I was shocked to find out that a little 1/2 cup helping of cottage cheese contains a huge 914 mg of sodium!

If you eat a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, dried beans, skim milk,  unprocessed lean meats, and whole grains, you will be limiting your sodium intake naturally while eating for overall health.  You can’t lose – except maybe a little weight!

Tell me what you think!  Please leave your comments below.