Salt craving. Give in to it?

Khannie

Gasping for salt today. I did sweat a _lot_ last night. Should I just go with it? (I did already to an extent, but body says "more plz").

Piste

G'wan, scoff some Tayto

Khannie

Haha.

EileenG

The guidelines for salt/sodium are based on possibly hypertensive couch potatoes. If you are someone who works out hard and sweats a lot, you will NEED a lot more salt than that.

The other day my bike shop guy made some remark about how I cycle hard. I asked him how he knew? "Your face is covered with salt crystals."

It doesn't happen often, but on a hot day where you are sweating a lot, lack of salt can cause absolutely mega cramps. The sort of cramps that make you fall over in pain, convinced your legs are about to break!

The main sources of salt for most people is not table salt, it's bread, boxed breakfast cereals and ready meals. If most of your food is fresh and unprocessed, you won't be getting that salt and may need some extra.

cozmik

EileenG wrote: »

The main sources of salt for most people is not table salt, it's bread, boxed breakfast cereals and ready meals.

Don't forget ham, sausages, bacon and other meat like smoked fish, most butter, margarine and cheese.

Khannie

@salt crystals on face.

EileenG wrote: »

The main sources of salt for most people is not table salt, it's bread, boxed breakfast cereals and ready meals. If most of your food is fresh and unprocessed, you won't be getting that salt and may need some extra.

Nice one. Cheers. Yeah I wouldn't eat much bread, no boxed breakfast cereals and no ready meals. I gave into my salt cravings yesterday.

Piste

Yeah that happens to me after the gym, my forehead is crusty with salt, it's quite disgusting >.<

EileenG

Piste wrote: »

Yeah that happens to me after the gym, my forehead is crusty with salt, it's quite disgusting >.<

So you had a good workout. Now have a shower....

El_Dangeroso

I know I'm gonna be slaughtered for saying this, but as I've already got a rep as an agent provocateur so what the hey..:)

Salt may not cause hypertension at all.. *pauses for gasps of disbelief*

It raises blood pressure temporarily that's for sure (so does exersise), but by that logic we could assume that peeling onions cause hayfever as it produces the same symptoms.

The more obvious cause of hypertension is refined carbohydrate, as hypertensive people who cut these out experience a spontaneous reduction of blood pressure without altering salt consumption. Of course processed food is bad, but have you ever seen how much salt is used in Italian and greek cooking? They use sea-salt(not 'table salt', awful processed stuff that), that's packed with trace minerals.

Also, this came out recently:

"Sodium Intake and Mortality Follow-Up in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III)"
Authors: HW Cohen, SM Hailpern, MH Alderman

They found that people with low sodium diets had a higher risk for heart disease. Before I get barraged with counter studies (of which there are looooaadds, not all very scientific). They adjusted the results for traditional risk factors such as smoking, diabetes and blood pressure. So the conclusion is that if you don't have high blood pressure, don't worry bout adding sea salt to food. If you do, drop the refined carbs and keep the salt moderate. I don't think using low sodium salt helps at all.

Don't fear the natural sea salt that you put in your own cooking, while I'm being all controversial, taint nuthin wrong with bacon neither!