THE SODIUM DILEMMA-HOW LOW IS LOW ENOUGH?

Salt is considered a dirty word till recently and it constituted along with sugar and fat the infamous triumvirate of unhealthy food constituents to be shunned to maintain good health and good quality life. All three are implicated in heart diseases when consumed in excess. Of these, salt, if consumed at uncontrolled levels is supposed to raise blood pressure consequences of which include heart failure, stroke and kidney failure. The moot question is, at what level of consumption it becomes excess? The recommended level of salt consumption was progressively reduced during the last few years and to day many health pundits say that man should not consume more than half teaspoon of salt daily, working out to about 1500 mg of sodium equivalent!. Billions of dollars are being pumped to take up campaigns to persuade people to bring down salt intake and many awareness programs to educate them. Now comes the news that mindless reduction of salt can be injurious to health and a healthy person must take salt that will supply 3000 to 7000 mg of sodium per day through the diet and outside this range man is vulnerable to heart disease! Here is a take on this latest finding that throws the current perception out of the window! 

The United States dietary guidelines, based on the 2005 Institute of Medicine report, recommend that the general population aim for sodium levels of 1,500 to 2,300 milligrams a day because those levels will not raise blood pressure. The average sodium consumption in the United States, and around the world, is about 3,400 milligrams a day, according to the Institute of Medicine — an amount that has not changed in decades. But more recently, researchers began looking at the actual consequences of various levels of salt consumption, as found in rates of heart attacks, strokes and death, not just blood pressure readings. Some of what they found was troubling. One 2008 study the committee examined, for example, randomly assigned 232 Italian patients with aggressively treated moderate to severe congestive heart failure to consume either 2,760 or 1,840 milligrams of sodium a day, but otherwise to consume the same diet. Those consuming the lower level of sodium had more than three times the number of hospital readmissions — 30 as compared with 9 in the higher-salt group — and more than twice as many deaths — 15 as compared with 6 in the higher-salt group. Another study, published in 2011, followed 28,800 subjects with high blood pressure ages 55 and older for 4.7 years and analyzed their sodium consumption by urinalysis. The researchers reported that the risks of heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure and death from heart disease increased significantly for those consuming more than 7,000 milligrams of sodium a day and for those consuming fewer than 3,000 milligrams of sodium a day. There are physiological consequences of consuming little sodium, said Dr. Michael H. Alderman, a dietary sodium expert at Albert Einstein College of Medicine who was not a member of the committee. As sodium levels plunge, triglyceride levels increase, insulin resistance increases, and the activity of the sympathetic nervous system increases. Each of these factors can increase the risk of heart disease.

It is terrible to imagine that during the last one decade how many lives might have been lost due to sodium insufficiency across the world because of the current misconception and ceaseless salt "bashing". Besides causing heart disease low sodium is also reported to be contributing to increased fat build up and diabetes with other serious consequences. A look back on the salt consumption levels of human beings reveal the predominance of salt in products like pickles, saurkrauts, cured meat, dried fish etc and there were no reports of adverse consequences of high salt intake among them. It is after the explosive development of processed food industry during the last 2-3 decades that there were spurts of incidences of heart disease and other life style health disorders and as the proportion of processed foods in daily diet increased, the on-slaught of the the above diseases also gained momentum assuming epidemic proportion.   

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

THE GREAT MEAT DILEMMA-CONSUMER HEALTH VS FARMER HEALTH

Meat is very nutritious food besides providing unparalleled culinary pleasure to those liking them. It is no wonder that almost 90% of the world population eat meat given the opportunity and resources required to get access to them. Though there are sustained campaigns to convert people from carnivores to at least omnivores, if not herbivores, the argument being based on wasteful practices involved in commercial production of meat and similar animal products and the uncontrollable carbon emission causing global warming. However such scientific findings do not carry much conviction with those addicted to meat consumption. Feeble attempts to even marginally curtail meat consumption do not seem to have any chance of success as reflected by the recent aborted policy of American government to make one day in a week meatless day. Here is a report about this policy fiasco that may have far reaching implications.

"The USDA has retracted its support for an initiative to cut meat from Americans' Monday diets, caving in to pressure from livestock producers and complaints from a Kansas Senator. The original plug appeared in the USDA's internal "Greening Headquarters Update" on Monday, where three paragraphs on the third page mentioned Meatless Mondays, an initiative by Monday Campaigns, Inc.  The update called them a "simple way to reduce your environmental impact." The memo went on to say that animal agriculture — beef production in particular — wastes water, fertilizer, fossil fuels and other resources. It also contributes to global climate change, the memo said. "Because Meatless Monday involves only one day a week, it is a small change that could produce big results," the newsletter said. "Did you notice that our cafeterias have tasty meatless options?" Well, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association noticed. The association's president, J.D. Alexander, said the newsletter called into question the USDA's "commitment" to farmers and ranchers. He called the newsletter "awakening," and condemned the agency for failing to understand efforts made to produce food sustainably. He cited progress the industry has made over the last 30 years to produce more meat with fewer environmental costs. "This move by USDA should be condemned by anyone who believes agriculture is fundamental to sustaining life on this planet," Alexander said. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) noticed, too. Once he saw Twitter responses to the USDA's promotion of Meatless Mondays, he immediately printed out the USDA's newsletter and headed down to the Senate floor, his aide, Garrette Silverman told ABC News.com. Kansas is the third-largest beef producer in the country. "We are a beef-producing state and it is one of the items that improves our balance of trade as we export meat and beef around the world," Moran concluded his three-minute speech on the Senate floor. "And, yet, our own Department of Agriculture encourages people not to consume meat."

One of the illogical offshoots of the above flip-flop is the inconvenient question whether the US government is pro farmer or pro consumer or pro lobbyists1 It is an established fact that the American government is a prisoner of powerful farm and industrial lobbies which are supported by the political class of all hues unabashedly. In this particular policy reversal case it is the producers of meat products who exerted undue influence to abort the policy under the pretext that the highly subsidized industry would suffer grievously if meat consumption is reduced by even marginally. Same scenario is repeating itself whether it is use of HFCS in most products or improvement of cages for the poultry birds or genetically modified foods or branding of Pizza products as vegetables for school cafeterias with consumer interests totally sidelined! This is a travesty justice as promotion of meat is not a policy that can improve the health of the population as well as that of the planet. Such lop sided priorities are bound to cause long term damage to the citizens and it is nothing but shirking of responsibility by the government to wards building a healthy environment in the country  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT?-CONSUMER DILEMMA

How can any consumer decide whether a packaged food is safe for eating? Obviously many depend on the label declaration printed by the manufacturer during the production stage but no product label ever contains any information regarding the safety of the product. The issue becomes more complicated when dealing with date expired foods. What is the responsibility of the manufacturer vis-à-vis the consumer? One cannot expect that a product put on the market shelf will last for ever and the label declaration can at best be a guidance to the consumer regarding the safety of the product within a certain period.

It is mistakenly believed that all foods after the marked date are not safe. Some can still be edible and safe though the quality may not be comparable to that existed at the time of manufacture. According to consumer activists " product date labels refer only to the quality of food, warning of the gradual changes in taste, color and nutrient content that can occur after the printed date. Consumers are largely left to figure out when food has become unsafe".

The problem is universal and probably has no effective solution. Food being a complex bio-organic material, chemical and physical changes are bound to occur at ambient conditions and such changes are exacerbated under higher temperature and humidity environments. Probably industry can give assurance only regarding the microbiological status of the product as long as the package integrity is not disturbed.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com