Monday Moanin': Salt!

One thing I like about writing this little blog 'o' mine is commenting on how the verities of what is healthful changes.  Take salt, for instance.   

But first:

The Numbers:

• Fasting Blood Glucose Level:  102 mg/dl.  Very late night dinner after spending a long Sunday working around the yard.  We had lots sweet potatoes and a couple of frozen margaritas.  The Charming Mrs. SWMBO and I always say we are going to knock off at a certain time to have dinner at a decent time, but it never seems to work out that way. 
• Weight:  188 lbs. 
• Exercise:  45 minutes on a very sweaty bike ride. Summer is here in Houston and for now it looks as if we are going to have repeat of last summers drought and heat. 
• Mood:  7.5.  Could be better, could be worse. 

The Menu:

• Breakfast:  Oatmeal with raisins and infused with herbal cinnamon and apple tea, breakfast morning fruit medley. 
• Lunch:  Late, so a veggie sub at Subway's.  Its sounds healthy and it is filling. 
• Dinner:  Very late night Tex Mex.  By BG is going to be through the roof tomorrow morning.
• Snacks:  Some craisins and almonds.  

Salt was bad for your heart, but now it's not.  Mostly. 

Years ago I tried to cut down on my salt intake.  It lead to hypertension, the medical line was, and that led to heart attacks or strokes.  Okay, fine, no problem, gotta stay healthy and so learn to enjoy the other flavor in foods. That is what I was advised to do in any number of articles I read.

Didn't work. 

I tried to use salt substitutes like Mrs. Dash, rinse canned vegetables because they were cooked with salt and eat less prepared foods in general, which use a lot salt.  Truth be told, I failed at learning to appreciate the other flavors in food.  I found myself reaching for the salt shaker and buying foods I liked that had had a goodly about of salt in them.

Salt makes food taste better.  I like salt.  There, I said it. To me it brightens up the natural other flavors I was supposed to appreciate on their own. Without it food tastes a bit dull.  No, food with out tastes really dull. 

Salt's tale is what I frustrates me about so much of the health wisdom passed down from on high.  It's wrong.  The evidence that salt had any long term deleterious affect on my health was never a proven fact, just extrapolation; if this, then that.  Those who knew the evidence against salt was scanty treated it as fact for release to the general public.  Salt causes hypertension.  It's all part of an excellent Gary Taubes article in the New York Times. 

The major question to me is why?  The evidence that salt was bad was weak and contradictory, so why not be honest and say just as much?  Despite the evidence to the contrary, salt was bad and that was part of the orthodoxy of health. That was a fact, even though it was not a fact.  Anyone pointing this out would be dismissed as a toady to some special high salt interest bent on harming it's own customers.  Don't get out of line.

Again, why?  I think it is no more complicated than we have a few people who don't want others to make up their own minds. They will do it for us. We don't know any better.  We need them to lead us to be better and all we have to do is do what they tell us to do.   We need them to tell us what is best for us. 

One of those thems is the mayor of New York, Nanny Bloomberg.  He restricted the salt restaurants could offer to their own customers in New York city a while back. He banned transfats and wants to ban any sugary drink of more that 16 oz. Why?  He thinks we don't know what is good for us.  He thinks he knows what is best for his charges.  He could even be right.  Is that any of his business?  No, it's not.

There is even a diabetic angle to all of this, one involving type 1 and type 2.  Not quite enough salts can cause heart problems for type 1 and type 2 diabetics.  So, despite evidence, what are we supposed to eat less of?  Salt.

And people wonder why we are so cynical these days about experts.