Is Cutting Salt Ever Harmful?

[Northerner]

Sodium restriction is one of the most common dietary recommendations made by US physicians. But there is lack of consensus on how low to go and whether cutting salt can ever be harmful.

When our evolutionary ancestors left the salty environment of the sea for dry land, the burden of salt and water conservation fell to the kidneys. "The tenacious conservation of salt is one of the most primitive — if not the most primitive — of functions in the vertebrate kidney," wrote Homer W. Smith in From Fish to Philosopher.

Over time, dietary habits changed, and in the current US environment there is no shortage of salt. One nationally representative survey reported a dietary sodium intake of over 3600 mg daily in US adults. While major scientific societies are united in asking us to cut our salt intake, they generally differ regarding sodium thresholds. For example, the CDC advises a daily limit of 2300 mg of sodium, the AHA goes lower with 1500 mg, and the WHO sits in the middle at 2000 mg/day.

Is Cutting Salt Ever Harmful?

Despite universal recommendations to lower sodium intake, there is a lack of consensus on how low to go and whether cutting salt can ever be harmful.

www.medscape.com

 

[Drummer]

Salary - the allotment of salt given as part payment to those serving in the Roman army.

 

[mikeyB]

Try eating a zero salt diet. It's almost inedible. Bread without salt in the recipe tastes like cardboard.

 

[Robin]

Try eating a zero salt diet. It's almost inedible. Bread without salt in the recipe tastes like cardboard.

Don’t move to Tuscany, then, Tuscan bread is made without salt. The story goes that it was because the Tuscans refused to pay the high salt taxes!

 

[Drummer]

I make bread with only a small amount of sugar, not the shovelfuls used in American style loaves.
I have a bread maker due to arrive tomorrow - should be fun.
Wasn't it a salt tax which began the long road to independence for India - when Ghandi went to the coast to make salt from sea water?

 

[AngelSprings]

I don't enjoy food without salt, it's tasteless. Not to go overboard, just a sprinkle over the food I'm eating.

I don't purchase the over refined stuff from the local supermarket, but a grey unrefined Celtic sea salt hand harvested from the salt marshes in Guerande, Brittany. And left to drain naturally in the sun. It contains valuable minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, iodine, zinc, and more.

Animals have been known to travel miles to reach salt licks. This must stem from a basic need.

Right, I'm getting off my soapbox now to boil a couple of eggs, to be eaten with salt and a slice of delicious low carb bread containing more salt and made in my new breadmaker.

And the sun is shining.

Have a good day!

 

[mikeydt1]

i cut my salt intake and it ended up putting me in hospital.

 

[mikeyB]

You can’t just say that, @mikeydt1, tell us the tale!