Taking Control

Since hypertension runs in my family, I've always been acutely aware of salt in my diet and have always been on the look-out for products that added too much unnecessary salt to my diet. I still add salt to my cooking (after all we need it to survive), but I've made the conscience decision to avoid unnecessary salt by just not eating processed foods.

And, the salt I use at home is sea salt which allows me to get more of a salty taste in my cooking and baking without adding as much sodium to my diet as regular table salt does.

Since salt is kind of an obsession of mine, I found article from the New Republic interesting and thought provoking: http://www.tnr.com/article/75074/the-other-white-powder?page=0,0&passthru=NDQ2NTNmNDQ1YWVkMmM2M2JmMGNiZjQ0YzQ2N2Q4Njg

This passage particularly rang out to me:

"Thirty years ago is also when researchers spotted an uptick in numbers of obese Americans, the first sign of what is now described as an obesity epidemic. It turns out that, when we buy meals rather than make them, we generally wolf down larger portions (which manufacturers and restaurateurs prefer to sell to us, because bigger quantities yield more revenue) of saltier, fattier foods (which manufacturers and restaurateurs also like to sell to us, because we’re more likely to eat them whether we’re hungry or not). When dinner consists of a Swanson’s Hungry-Man XXL carved turkey meal, for instance, we may not realize that it contains nearly twice the recommended daily amount of salt—5,410 milligrams of it."

In other words, to take control of both our weight and our health, we have to take control of our food by preparing it ourselves. Food manufacturers have only one goal in mind---selling you food to make money. They have no interest in your health or seeing you at a healthy weight. In fact, the fatter you are the better it is for them because it means you're eating more and buying more, making more money for them.

So, if you don't already own them, buy a few good knives and pots, and learn your way around the kitchen. Put away the take-out menus, get out of the drive-through routine, and stay away from the frozen food and packaged foods aisles in the grocery storeStop ceding both your weight and your health to the food industry. Take control of your food, and take control of your life.