lets talk about meat....
Mar. 23rd, 2008 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thoreausliced deli meat for sandwiches, of course.
In my zest to eat better - I'm always on the lookout for things that are better.... I love sliced turkey and ham. but it's always "cured" and soaked in WAY too much sodium. Take for instance the deli thin sliced turkey from Hormel the 'natural selections' version. It is WAY better than your average but still has 440mg of salt in four slices. The daily recommend sodium level is 2,400 mg a day. so - a double serving of the turkey slices I eat is roughly 3.6% of my sodium. But - these meats are the most expensive on the rack - and the lesser expensive - Safeway brand has nearly 600mg per four slices - so the same serving would be 50% of your daily salt in JUST your sandwich. Let us not get started on the salt in potato chips or fritos or the such. ugh. Strawberry Shakes? the average fast food strawberry shake has 600 to a McDonalds high 650mg of salt in them. We've been programmed to love salt - and I'm not immune. I salt everything. but I'm starting to figure I need to make a change.
Most of our salt (75 percent) comes from savory processed foods. Unprocessed foods like cereals, dairy foods, fruits, vegetables and meat are naturally low in salt. Salt is used as a preservative so many savory foods such as breakfast cereals, biscuits, cheese, canned beans and vegetables, canned and processed meats (bacon, ham, sausages, burgers and pies) and ready meals all have high levels of salt in them. And items such as ketchup and pickles are very high too. You don't think when you snack on that pickle that is' soaked in salt to make it what it is - you just think "damn - thats a tasty pickle" LOL
Salt is proven to increase heart disease, stroke vulnerablity and blood pressure issues.
What have some of you other health minded salt-o-holics done to choose better meats, foods and beverages?
On the drive home from Goldbergville this afternoon - I listened to a lovely program on KQED - it was an interview with Michael Pollan entitled "Eat food, not too much -- mostly plants." These words are journalist Michael Pollan's simple answer to the complex question of what people should eat. First presented in a New York Times Magazine feature article, Pollan expands his well-considered advice in the recent In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. A clear-eyed look at what the food industry does and does not know about diet and health, In Defense of Food links ecology and tradition, concluding that life can be long and food enjoyed so long as you "don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food." It was a fascinating talk - then he took questions from the audience. He talked about how fast food - is cheaper - because the calories are - 'cheaper calories' or calories the body can't really use so burns up and sends on "out the door" so to speak. I'll need to pick up his book - but one of his more interesting topics was that the Chinese are moving towards a very U.S. diet (fast quick foods, not necessarily burger king fast food - but processed foods eaten on the go) He talked about how that sort of diet - is a result of global changes - and that the topic missing most from global warming discussions (even Al Gore's drive for change) isn't discussing changes in food. and how global climate change will affect food. He knew a great deal about fisheries (and the lack of political will to keep the ocean's from being fish free in a few generations) and beef - (methane from beef farming is a high contributor to global warming according to Pollan).
In my zest to eat better - I'm always on the lookout for things that are better.... I love sliced turkey and ham. but it's always "cured" and soaked in WAY too much sodium. Take for instance the deli thin sliced turkey from Hormel the 'natural selections' version. It is WAY better than your average but still has 440mg of salt in four slices. The daily recommend sodium level is 2,400 mg a day. so - a double serving of the turkey slices I eat is roughly 3.6% of my sodium. But - these meats are the most expensive on the rack - and the lesser expensive - Safeway brand has nearly 600mg per four slices - so the same serving would be 50% of your daily salt in JUST your sandwich. Let us not get started on the salt in potato chips or fritos or the such. ugh. Strawberry Shakes? the average fast food strawberry shake has 600 to a McDonalds high 650mg of salt in them. We've been programmed to love salt - and I'm not immune. I salt everything. but I'm starting to figure I need to make a change.
Most of our salt (75 percent) comes from savory processed foods. Unprocessed foods like cereals, dairy foods, fruits, vegetables and meat are naturally low in salt. Salt is used as a preservative so many savory foods such as breakfast cereals, biscuits, cheese, canned beans and vegetables, canned and processed meats (bacon, ham, sausages, burgers and pies) and ready meals all have high levels of salt in them. And items such as ketchup and pickles are very high too. You don't think when you snack on that pickle that is' soaked in salt to make it what it is - you just think "damn - thats a tasty pickle" LOL
Salt is proven to increase heart disease, stroke vulnerablity and blood pressure issues.
What have some of you other health minded salt-o-holics done to choose better meats, foods and beverages?
On the drive home from Goldbergville this afternoon - I listened to a lovely program on KQED - it was an interview with Michael Pollan entitled "Eat food, not too much -- mostly plants." These words are journalist Michael Pollan's simple answer to the complex question of what people should eat. First presented in a New York Times Magazine feature article, Pollan expands his well-considered advice in the recent In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. A clear-eyed look at what the food industry does and does not know about diet and health, In Defense of Food links ecology and tradition, concluding that life can be long and food enjoyed so long as you "don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food." It was a fascinating talk - then he took questions from the audience. He talked about how fast food - is cheaper - because the calories are - 'cheaper calories' or calories the body can't really use so burns up and sends on "out the door" so to speak. I'll need to pick up his book - but one of his more interesting topics was that the Chinese are moving towards a very U.S. diet (fast quick foods, not necessarily burger king fast food - but processed foods eaten on the go) He talked about how that sort of diet - is a result of global changes - and that the topic missing most from global warming discussions (even Al Gore's drive for change) isn't discussing changes in food. and how global climate change will affect food. He knew a great deal about fisheries (and the lack of political will to keep the ocean's from being fish free in a few generations) and beef - (methane from beef farming is a high contributor to global warming according to Pollan).
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 04:37 am (UTC)and this commentary on NPR today? he was so right about "cheap calories" - that it's worth paying that extra step more for your food - because you get better nutrition and stuff from that.
"and stuff." I sound like an 8th grader on Jolt cola. (giggle)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 06:54 am (UTC)But yes, it is tough to find healthier foods.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 10:30 pm (UTC)Oh to be that little kid who just enjoyed a creamsicle without knowing what a calorie was, what sodium was, or how complicated eating would become...
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 11:00 pm (UTC)