SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE

In the past year or so, the Oracle has been living with a type of high blood pressure called "Isolated Systolic Hypertension" where the upper number, the SYSTOLIC pressure is elevated but the lower one is normal or even low.  I wrote about this in previous posts.  When a person has this condition, there are several things that are necessary for normalizing the  blood pressure.  There are pills which work, to a varying degree with some side effects.  Reduction of stress, by avoiding other people problems for example and resigning as General Manager of the Universe, is another. Moderate exercise helps.   Reducing the SODIUM (salt) content of one's diet is very important.  As in almost everything in life, a four legged stool stands better than a one or two  or three legged one, so I chose to do all four.  It seemed to be working, mostly.  

I put a picture of a salt shaker at the top of this post.  I NEVER shake salt on my food and am not particularly fond of salted peanuts or french fries.  I figured if I just watched out for obvious sources of salt, like "saltines" I would be able to reduce the sodium content of my diet and I would be able to maintain a good blood pressure on minimal medication, serenity, and physical fitness. Au contraire, my friends.  My pressure remained a bit elevated, sometimes more, despite these steps.  I started looking at the nutrition labels on the back of every store bought product in our pantry.  Some things have so much sodium in them that one serving put me over the sodium limit for the day...approximately 2000 milligrams. Innocent products that you would not even think had any salt in them at all are loaded with it.

Last night I had a very healthy dinner at our club consisting of poached salmon, a green salad with olive oil and vinegar dressing, and snagged some of the Kitty's pickled beets off her plate.  The beets were delicious.  I began to wonder what they were pickled IN.  And at the same time I researched why, when I look at processed food labels I would see such a high sodium content in almost everything. I found the answers.  When something is corned, pickled or cured, it is either packed in salt or soaked in salt water (brine).  Why do that?  Are people so in love with the taste of salt ?  Many folks are, but no, it's because the presence of salt and sugar prevents bacterial growth. Extra salt is added for this reason  to most foods that need a reasonable shelf life.   Salting food to preserve it is as old as civilization itself. One would think that in the modern world we would have something else to keep food longer lasting.  Apparently not.

So, I guess it's a good thing that I don't live in times when salt pork, salt cod, and pickled everything made up most of our diet.  I might not be alive to write this post, then again I would be sending it out by smoke signal because there was no electricity.  I would have had more exercise chasing down dinner or running away from what I though was going to be dinner.  There would have been more roots and berries in my diet.  I doubt the stresses of the day would have been the same.  They probably would have been more about real things like having enough food and a cave roof over my head. There were no pills but perhaps I would have been lucky enough to find some natural solutions...chewing the bark off the right tree, or finding the right fruit or vegetable with all those nutrients that we are told are good for us when we shop at Whole Foods.

So, don't forget to look for the hidden salt in everything.  Our government in one of it's saner moments required that food manufacturers list the sugar, calorie and salt content of packaged foods. Restaurants don't have that requirement but the chain restaurants like Wendy's and McDonald's, for example, each have a website where all of their products are listed, along with the nutritional or non-nutritional information.  What you will find out is scarier than a Stephen King movie. A small Mickey D's cheeseburger (one dollar) has about 800 milligrams of sodium in it.  That's almost half your daily allowance.  Chick-Fil-A sells a grilled chicken sandwich that tastes healthy but somehow they manage to put 1000 milligrams (mg) of sodium in it. We (used to) stop there when we are on the road because it is so seemingly healthy. Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich...don't even ask.