This week: How much salt should we eat?
Celebrity chef Delia Smith has been accused by the campaigning group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) of including too much salt in her recipes. Salt is a mineral essential for life and good health, but too much of it can be harmful. So what's the truth? We asked nutritionist Nathalie Jones to talk us through the facts.
Do we need salt?
Salt - or sodium chloride - is essential for our bodies to function. Sodium helps to maintain the balance of fluids in the body and helps to generate and transmit electrical impulses in the nerves and muscles.
So why does salt pose a health risk?
Excessive sodium makes the body retain too much water, which can lead to increased blood pressure or hypertension, which in turn can cause heart disease and stroke. Cash has carried out scientific studies on thousands of individuals which it says is strong evidence of the link between high salt intake and increased blood pressure.
How do we make sure we are getting the right amount of salt?
The government recommends that the average person should consume no more than six grams of salt a day - about a teaspoonful - whereas at the moment the average person is consuming about nine grams.
Nathalie advises against adding salt to our diet since it is already found in most foods such as cereal, bread, tinned food, processed foods and take-aways.
"People should be thinking about cutting down on their salt intake and you can do this by limiting the amount of processed food in your diet.
Do some people need more or less salt than others?
The good news is that, according to Nathalie, sodium deficiency is highly unlikely. The only people in danger of not getting enough sodium are athletes, because they drink a lot of water. "With the amount of salt already in food most people consume too much salt just by following a normal diet," says Nathalie.
Generally, a high sodium intake is not good for anyone at any age but babies, in particular, do not have the capacity to process large quantities of salt because their kidneys are not strong enough.
Won't cutting out salt make food tasteless?
With some products, especially processed food, the salt is added mainly for preservation purposes rather than to add flavour.
People add salt to cooking and at the dining table mostly out of habit.
Nathalie points out: "If people are used to having a lot of salt then they will initially miss the taste and food will taste bland without it, but after about a couple of weeks the tastebuds will adjust and food with a lot of salt in it will actually start to taste too salty."
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