Shock! Horror!

Nick Kew said:

Not entirely. The highest salt food I refuse to give up is olives,
the taste for which I acquired in my six years in central Italy.

Here's a question for the salt crusaders. Italians consume hugely
more salt than Brits[1], yet have less of a problem with heart
disease than we do. How come?

Just a guess, but do the Italians consume fewer pies, hamburgers, chips,
ready meals and the like? Their tendency only to drink alcohol when
eating might explain something too.

Similarly, do you have actual evidence to show that their salt intake is
higher?

When I was in Italy last year I was astonished at how cheaply I could
eat some delicious, healthy food. We never saw a fast-food restaurant.
In supermarkets, we saw only two people buying anything that might be
described as a ready meal. The range of fresh fruit and veg was
astounding.

Cheers,
Luke
--
Red Rose Ramblings, the diary of an Essex boy in
exile in Lancashire <http://www.shrimper.org.uk>

Nick Kew <[email hidden]> of The Holy Book of the Great Bludner

Quoted message said:

On Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:37:30 +0000

Steph Peters said:

If you are going to be a successful at weight reduction, then I
wouldn't advise giving up salt at the same time. The highly
flavoured things that make food a pleasure to eat, like mustard,
chillies, soy sauce, pickles and so on have small amounts of calories
and can make a lower calorie diet a lot more interesting.

Not to mention a high calorie diet. But how do you lump all those
things from soy sauce (very high salt) to chillies (no salt) together?

I lump them together as strong tasting things which improve the taste of
food. Some are salty, some aren't, but I'm not giving any of them up.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm
addicted to pickled onions, pickled cabbage and capers. If you feel
that you must reduce your salt intake try replacing it with lemon
juice or other sharp acidic flavours. They sort of satisfy the same
taste need. --

Not entirely. The highest salt food I refuse to give up is olives,
the taste for which I acquired in my six years in central Italy.

I agree on the not entirely, but it works enough times to be worth trying
and find out where the substitution works and where not.
Are all olives brined and therefore high in salt? This is an academic
question for me at the moment, as olives are too high calorie for regular
consumption, but I do love them so will be consuming some when I get to the
maintenance phase.
--
Steph Peters
Chorlton Wanderers Cycling Group
Monthly slow and easy rides from South Manchester
http://www.sandbenders.demon.co.uk/cycling/chwan.htm

"Steph Peters" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Martin of BigPond Internet Services said:

climbs onto soapbox...

If you reduce your salt intake to about 3 grams/day or less you will
loose about 2 kg which is the water our bodies have to carry to deal
with a high salt intake.

steps down from soapbox.

A major part of weight reduction is stopping eating processed food, and
cooking your own from raw ingredients so that you know what has gone into
it. Add in the necessary reduction in portion sizes you will inevitably
reduce your salt consumption, even if you replace processed food with the
same dishes.

The 2kg of water from high salt intake is neither here nor there in the
context Vernon and I are discussing. I do agree though that post-cooking
salt isn't a major part of the salt we consume.
--

Agreed, 2kg is the least of my worries. So far so good with home made
food:.vegetable stew and ratatouille along with vegetarian cous cous and
salads and abstaining from bread, crisps, fry ups, and biscuits have been
the start of my home cooked foods regime. So glad I've got a pressure
cooker to speed things along. Thing is, the food it so tasty I want to eat
lots of it ;-)

vernon said:

"Steph Peters" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

A major part of weight reduction is stopping eating processed food,
and cooking your own from raw ingredients so that you know what has
gone into it. Add in the necessary reduction in portion sizes you
will inevitably reduce your salt consumption, even if you replace
processed food with the same dishes.

The 2kg of water from high salt intake is neither here nor there in
the context Vernon and I are discussing. I do agree though that
post-cooking salt isn't a major part of the salt we consume.
--

Agreed, 2kg is the least of my worries. So far so good with home made
food:.vegetable stew and ratatouille along with vegetarian cous cous
and salads and abstaining from bread, crisps, fry ups, and biscuits
have been the start of my home cooked foods regime. So glad I've got
a pressure cooker to speed things along. Thing is, the food it so
tasty I want to eat lots of it ;-)

With home preparation using a measure or scales is essential IMHO.

We've cooked at home for decades, pretty much everything is done from basic
fresh ingredients (inc. bread, cake and biscuits). Everything is
weighed/measured, so portion sizes are constant. In contrast,
brother-in-law was cooking "by eye". After a few years he was worried about
his weight rising and began to weigh things; he was shocked that his "eye"
had slid the weight of rice/pasta up by 50%.

You might also find it useful to buy some new **smaller** plates and bowls;
that way they look full-to-overflowing with only a modest meal; or you still
have an option for a "legal" second helping. Someone I know measured some
typical modern crockery and some 1950's examples, and found that plate and
bowl sizes had increased a lot over the decades - possibly another
contribution to the general rise in weight across the population.

We find cooking double or quadruple portions is useful, then freeze into
individual ready-meals for quick re-heating (either in a pan or microwave).
It saves a full cooking session every day. Vegetable stews and ratatouille
are ideal for freezing. We re-use various plastic pots with lids
(cream/yoghurt/dried fruit, etc) for freezing meals.

btw. once you start to prepare things from fresh/raw, the next step is
growing your own, and uk.rec.gardening is your next stop.

- Nigel

--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

"Nigel Cliffe" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

btw. once you start to prepare things from fresh/raw, the next step is
growing your own, and uk.rec.gardening is your next stop.

Been there done that. I was very good at growing a portion sized *total*
harvest of any vegetable that I chose with the exception of my 3lb onions.
I don't have the time to cycle, maintain an allotment plot and add another
newsgroup to my reading list ;-)

My newly modified eating habits are being further modified by the emergence
of a dental abscess this weekend. Portion sizes are limited by the pain
they induce :-(

On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:13:09 GMT,

Martin said:

climbs onto soapbox...

High salt intake is pretty bad for your health (possible about as bad as
being overweight or obese) and just eliminating post-cooking salt
doesn't reduce your intake much. Most of us need to reduce our salt
intake because almost all processed food (including bread) contains way
too much salt.

http://www.worldactiononsalt.com/index.htm
http://www.saltmatters.org

If you reduce your salt intake to about 3 grams/day or less you will
loose about 2 kg which is the water our bodies have to carry to deal
with a high salt intake.

steps down from soapbox.

It's depressing how difficult it is to reduce your salt intake.
Ironically, if you need extra calories then a bag of crisps is actually
better for you in terms of salt than a typical shop bought sandwich![1]

I bake my own bread with no salt and it's so much nicer than the salty
bread you buy in the shops.

What I really don't understand is the "traffic light" system some foods
now have.

If a sandwich has 16% of your recommended daily calories then it gets a
green.

If that same sandwich has 32% of your recommended daily saturated fat it
gets a red.

But if it has 32% of your recommended daily salt it gets a yellow.

And that's despite the fact that the 6g/day recommended salt intake
isn't even what was considered to be an ideal target, but instead what
was considered a realistic target.

Tim.

[1] Walkers crisps compared to M&S sandwiches

--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://tjw.hn.org/ http://www.locofungus.btinternet.co.uk/

Martin said:

In reply to Brendan's post which my ISP doesn't appear to have received:

Brendan Halpin said:

Sounds a bit alarmist to me. See e.g.

I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into a discussion on
salt but I would like to add this as my final comment.

Since we're in the business of final comments...

Quoted message said:

The evidence
against salt is as strong as or stronger than the evidence against
tobacco.

.... mine is "Irresponsible hyperbole!".

Brendan
(tongue only slightly in cheek, also licking salt off lips)

ObBike: a pleasure to ride with a newly smooth and silent-running
chain...
--
Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
[email hidden] http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html

vernon' of said:

Agreed, 2kg is the least of my worries. So far so good with home made
food:.vegetable stew and ratatouille along with vegetarian cous cous and
salads and abstaining from bread, crisps, fry ups, and biscuits have been
the start of my home cooked foods regime. So glad I've got a pressure
cooker to speed things along. Thing is, the food it so tasty I want to eat
lots of it ;-)

Do join me on uk.food+drink.misc where this would be on topic, not that it's
going to stop me replying here.

I have not given up either bread or crisps. I eat less bread, and avoid the
types with nuts and seeds as that lifts the calorie count enormously. As I
have embarked on a rest of my life healthy eating plan, I'm not prepared to
give up crisps because I love them. However my tastes are now for the lower
fat varieties. I recommend Sainsburys 6 packs of reduced fat crisps, and
best of all Marks and Spencer baked potato crisps - very dry, so for crisps
very low calorie. Fry ups I can live without, and biscuits mostly.

Embrace the 'all in the pot at once with some liquid and no oil' method of
cooking for your stew and ratatouille and similar dishes. Made that way the
calorie counts are low, so you can eat more if you want to. It is NOT
necessary to go hungry to lose weight. Investigate the Quorn meat
replacement products for some easy reductions.

Nigel Cliffe' of said:

With home preparation using a measure or scales is essential IMHO.

We've cooked at home for decades, pretty much everything is done from basic
fresh ingredients (inc. bread, cake and biscuits). Everything is
weighed/measured, so portion sizes are constant. In contrast,
brother-in-law was cooking "by eye". After a few years he was worried about
his weight rising and began to weigh things; he was shocked that his "eye"
had slid the weight of rice/pasta up by 50%.

Rice and pasta are the only things I bother measuring, but I use a handy cup
instead (used to be a mug nearly double the size). I still can't judge the
smaller amount needed for two people by eye, even after 8 months.
--
Steph Peters
Chorlton Wanderers Cycling Group
Monthly slow and easy rides from South Manchester
http://www.sandbenders.demon.co.uk/cycling/chwan.htm