new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[Perris]

will do! Thanks in advance for spending the time to hunt it down.

 

[saysfaa]

"Previous research has shown that cutting out salt from meals can slash your risk of heart problems. Reducing the number of meals to which you add salt or ditching it altogether can make a huge difference to your heart health.
Potassium increases the amount of salt your body removes from the bloodstream. In a study, scientists set out to understand whether more potassium might benefit people by reducing their cardiovascular risk."
(from that article)
I've read that sodium can play a role in hardening blood vessels, and potassium does the opposite.

Did they look at this with mineral salt or only white salt?

Dr Brownstein and at least a few others are indicating white salt has a lot of similarities with white sugar, white flour, white oil... it isn't the base (salt, sugar, fat) that caused the problems when whatever it is is demonized. It is that whatever it is is stripped away from the other elements it would normally come with it and affect how the body uses is. The fiber connected with the sugar when you eat fruit, for example. With salt, it is the minerals that come with the sodium and chloride when you use evaporated sea salt.

We need salt. As we need fat. And carbs. And so on.

 

[saysfaa]

On the other hand, salt is put is sooo many ready-to-eat foods in such great quantities that most people probably do get too much. Everything is bad when you get too much of it.

I'd like to read the book too, Sally.

 

[RoyalChick]

This crowd might be interested in the generic instructions I was handed when they released me from hospital last week after emergency surgery for an impacted kidney stone (very painful).
I say generic instructions because they were about kidney stones in general not specific to my diet.
Anyway, low sodium is important because sodium can cause an increase in kidney stones so a big part of the instructions was about avoiding excess sodium.
The interesting part though was that they explicitly said that the bulk of sodium we consume comes from UPF including, but not only, bagged snacks.
The handout said not to worry about home cooked (or restaurant cooked) food, or even adding salt at the table because it was highly unlikely that excess salt would be consumed that way.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

As someone who has been craving dark chocolate covered almonds for several days now, I feel The Guardian is missing that dark chocolate is a good source of potassium. As are nuts.
I clearly should give in to my craving immediately!

I'm with Royal on this.

and if you have a sweet tooth, dark chocolate, cashew, caramel turtles are THE BOMB!

 

[Altairsky]

We don't need salt. There is already too much salt in everything we eat. Unprocessed meat and fish already have all the salt we need. We'd need salt only if we ate a goat's or a horse's diet.
Grey salt is still 99% salt so it's not an excuse to use more of it.
Last but not least, we don't need carbs. We need fats and protein. There are essential amino acids, essential fats, but there is no such thing as essential carbs. Inuits and keto diets are a proof that we don't need carbs to live a healthy life.

 

[RoyalChick]

I'm with Royal on this.

and if you have a sweet tooth, dark chocolate, cashew, caramel turtles are THE BOMB!

I have procured a bag of dark chocolate covered almonds. They sit temptingly on the kitchen counter.
But not for long. All that potassium calls!

Sorry for hogging the thread I will pay tax and then shut up. But part of the extensive blood screening I just went through revealed selenium deficiency. The doctor started writing me up for selenium supplements and I stopped him and said selenium, that’s oysters and Brazil nuts. Don’t worry, I’ve got this covered! He had the cheek to note it down as ‘patient refused treatment’!
I just took delivery of a bag of Brazil nuts and later this month plan on going with a friend to an oyster bar as a treat.
Supplements? Pah!

Tax: motherhood suits Tassels. She seems very happy and is looking on fine form. She is now allowed short breaks to sunbathe (vitamin D) before the Littles come and jump all over her.

Edited to add: crazy, it takes less than 2 Brazil nuts to get the RDA for selenium!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Did they look at this with mineral salt or only white salt?

Dr Brownstein and at least a few others are indicating white salt has a lot of similarities with white sugar, white flour, white oil... it isn't the base (salt, sugar, fat) that caused the problems when whatever it is is demonized. It is that whatever it is is stripped away from the other elements it would normally come with it and affect how the body uses is. The fiber connected with the sugar when you eat fruit, for example. With salt, it is the minerals that come with the sodium and chloride when you use evaporated sea salt.

We need salt. As we need fat. And carbs. And so on.

As with so much else, "the dosage is the poison".

Sea salt is good for trace elements - "micronutrients" - its not that it makes the salt "better", its that its providing a source for a lot of things you need only very very tiny amounts of that you may not otherwise be getting from your diet.

and not sea salt, but "gourmet" salt, still, could be of interest to some - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10459412/

 

[saysfaa]

I agree not all sea salt. The two Dr Brownstein recommends are celtic sea salt and redmond real salt. I trust the redmond more because it is mined from deposits of ancient seas. I don't like the thought of what is in the seas along the coast of France these days.

I liked palm island too because it tastes really good but I don't know what minerals are in it like for the other two.

Himelayan pink salt is much better than white salt but is a lightweight compared to the above two.

Not that I have much trust in any source of info these days.

 

[saysfaa]

We don't need salt. There is already too much salt in everything we eat. Unprocessed meat and fish already have all the salt we need. We'd need salt only if we ate a goat's or a horse's diet.
Grey salt is still 99% salt so it's not an excuse to use more of it.
Last but not least, we don't need carbs. We need fats and protein. There are essential amino acids, essential fats, but there is no such thing as essential carbs. Inuits and keto diets are a proof that we don't need carbs to live a healthy life.

Maybe. Maybe not.

How much meat/fish do you need to eat to get enough salt? I'm by no means a vegetarian but I am not eating nearly as much animal products as I used to. They are, with very few exceptions, acidifying. That is another fad thing, I think, but I lost two inches of height in the two years following a diagonsis of early onset osteoporosis... I have to do something different. The thing I found that seems the route with the best chance of helping me includes an acidifying diet along with a given exercise program. Maybe most people eat enough meat; maybe not as many as might be assumed.

My friend bought into the keto diet. Did it whole hog for several years and ended up with worse heath. She eventually figured out there are things in grains that we need. Or at least she does. I don't know what. She probably does; she does more research than I do. She's doing better now that it is a couple of months since adding in some grains. I don't think she changed much else.

Inuits don't eat only meat and fat and never did. They ate a much higher percent of meat than most other peoples but did it work well? Surviving for a while on it doesn't mean it works well. As we know from the junk most people are eating these days. And if it did work well, is that because they also ate the organs or had some other pieces to the diet that complemented the meat? Or because they lived/worked in arctic cold? Or because of physiological differences? Or a combination.

Reading biographies of people who have eaten all meat diets.... it doesn't work well at all for at least some people. Severe constipation is one of the first indications but that might be because they weren't eating enough fat with the meat. I do think it might work well for a few people - I believe a few people who have said they have been on what they call a carnivore diet for many years and feel better than anything else they tried. I don't know it they've had their bone density checked, though.