Better life without salt

Healthy Habits , Nutrition

The added salt? ... If you know it, you'll avoid it!

How much salt do you consume daily?

Imagine swallowing two teaspoons full of ... salt!

That is what every day, on average, every Italian does. While the recommended amount would be five grams, which is a level teaspoon.

More than half of the ingested salt is hidden in preserved and pre-cooked foods arising from industrial preparation, 10% occurs naturally in fresh foods, while about 36% is the salt we add when preparing meals.

Just think that in 300 grams of pizza there are about 2 grams of salt, therefore it only takes one pizza to reach the daily amount limit. In 50 grams of ham there are about 1.3 grams, in a dish of ready frozen pasta there is 1 gram, in a package of crackers 0.3 grams, and in canned legumes 0.5 grams.

Conscious choices

How can we check this excessive consumption of salt? Here's an idea: prefer fresh produce to packaged ones, or at least pay attention to labels, preferring those in which the sodium does not exceed 400 mg (0.4 grams) per serving.

The benefits?

When reducing the consumption of sodium in the recommended threshold, the systolic blood pressure (the top number) decreases of 6-8 mm Hg (millimeters of mercury) and the diastolic (the bottom number) up to 4 mm Hg.

This is a very good result if we think that the same reduction can be achieved with a decrease in body weight of 10 kg or by 30 minutes of walking a day at a steady pace!