Mort and I are at a meeting in Chicago this week. Today, the usual anti-salt crowd (Michael Jacobson, Larry Appel, et al) told a food industry conference that they should be concerned that Americans' appetite for salt is greater today than ever before. We've contended there hasn't been much change in a century.
Returning to my hotel room, I found a new database just announced by the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service tracking the nutrient composition of the US diet back nearly 100 years. For perspective, the government's NHANES database figures Americans take in about 3,400 mg/day of dietary sodium.
In this database, " ," USDA analysts estimate that per-capita daily sodium intake has increased 10 milligrams and has had swings of only about +/- 40 milligrams throughout the entire last half century, 1955-2005 (the latest data).
Maybe bit by bit our "truth squad" can get this debate to focus on facts. Everyone's entitled to their opinion; no one is entitled to their own facts.
Just for our readers' information, summarizing some of the changes in other nutrients since 1970, the analysis found in 2005 each American consumed (on average) 80 more pounds of commercially grown vegetables than in 1970, plus 56 more pounds of grain products and 34 more pounds of fruit. On the other hand, the numbers show the average American ate 55 fewer eggs and drank 10 gallons less milk and nine gallons less coffee. Protein intake shifted in favor of poultry (40 more pounds), cheese (20 more pounds), and fish (4 more pounds of boneless, trimmed equivalent), but with a 17-pound drop in red meat. Americans ate 31-pounds more in fat and oil additives and 23-pounds more of sweeteners. Gosh, maybe salt ISN'T the culprit in our "obesity epidemic." The data also track the well-known concern for calcium deficiency, especially in early-teenage girls. The ten gallons/year drop in milk represents 34 milligrams a day less calcium (mineral deficiencies, of course, are a trigger for salt-sensitive changes in blood pressure and a major reason why the Salt Institute has so strongly supported the DASH Diet, high in fruits, vegetables and dairy products.
There's a new public recognition of the link of salt and health, a "saline solution." As described in our blog back in January, salt-lined "caves" are the latest "in thing" in this week's Time Magazine's Living section. Reporter Jennine Lee-St. John seems to be on a mission to convince Time's readers that the halotherapy in Chicago's Galos Caves replicates the longstanding success of treating Eastern Europeans suffering respiratory ailments with recuperative sessions in salt mines. But it's stress relief that attracts US Midwesterners, not relief from air pollution. Lee-St. John describes the attraction as a "quest for holistic relaxation."
Chicago boasts more Polish residents than Warsaw and now it's hijacking a salty secret from Eastern Europe - salt caves or salt rooms. A recent Chicago Tribune article notes a suburban restaurant featuring a relaxing, spa-like respiratory restorative salt cave inspired by one the owners visited on a trip to Poland - as well "Chicago's first dining room encased in Black Sea salt." The owners also converted one of their salt caves into a small dining room.
Other Chicago-area spa's have salt "breathing rooms" to restore mind and body. Patrons claim "30 to 60 minutes in a salt-covered room can help relieve stress, cure a hangover or even improve respiratory health." Don't miss the video .
