Which of the Five Flavors do You Most Crave?
Sweet
Salty
Sour
Bitter
Pungent/Spicy
There’s also a 6th flavor, of course, known as Umami, but I’m sticking with the traditional categories for now, where “each taste nourishes a specific organ or organ system and each taste is correlated with a season, a type of warming or cooling energy, and a specific organ or system.”
I love salt. It’s always been good for me. It doesn’t raise my blood pressure or make me retain water. Nothing beats a bag of roasted salted sunflower seeds, or tortilla chips with cheese dip, or pretzels, or… well, you get the idea. Even dark chocolate is better with a sprinkling of sea salt. I could live without sweeties of every kind and don’t crave sugar, but don’t take away my salt lick!
But now the Powers-That-Be (medical researchers) are once again trying to ruin my good time. It turns out that eating more salt does not make you more thirsty… in fact, people who eat more salt actually drink less water.
But guess what. A controlled study of 10 Russian cosmonauts was created with only one dietary variation: The amount of daily salt intake. And their appetites changed with the level of dietary salt.
What happened over the course of the study upended the researchers’ expectations: The cosmonauts drank more water as their salt intake dropped.
“We simply could not understand it,” says Titze.
Titze describes another surprise. The cosmonauts complained of hunger while on the high-salt diet.
“We said you can’t be hungry, you’re getting the same amount of food,” says Titze. “The only thing that’s changed is the amount of salt.”
The cosmonauts had to eat 25 percent more just to maintain their weight.
Another study revealed that eating an extra gram of salt each day increased the risk of obesity in children by 28% and in adults by 26%. It appears that salt intake changes how your body burns fat. Or maybe it just makes the food taste better so you eat more. This is why I rarely have a bag of chips in the house, and why I make pNut hide his bag of chips in the garage.
Titze offers this advice: “If you’re on a diet and trying to reduce the amount of food you eat but you always feel hungry, start thinking of salt. Perhaps reducing it may help you.”
So now that I’m hitting that portion of the aging program where extra weight comes to visit more regularly and outstays its welcome (sometimes by years) I’ve finally been convinced to look at my salt intake.
This is gonna be a tough one.
What do you want to talk about today?
RSVPS
1. Chrislove
2. Chrislove’s BF
3. icelus
4. Texdude50
5. scott5js
6.
MAYBEES :
|
RSVPS
1. Thinking Fella
2. Ojibwa
3. state of confusion
4. jakedog42
5. MotherMags
6. MTmofo
7. Done4nau
8. Boise Blue
9. Mrs. Boise Blue
10. Mhosz
11. Mrs. Mhosz
12. Maudlin
13. Mr. Maudlin
14. dsb
15.
MAYBEES :
Simple
woolibaar
Back Porch
philosopher
Kitsap River
Charles Curtis Stanley
|
RSVPS
1. Bill in Portland Maine
2. Common Sense Mainer
3. navajo
4. markm667
5. vicki
6. vicki’s recruit 1
7. vicki’s recruit 2
8. smileycreek
9. paradise50
10. Ed Tracey
11. side pocket
12. Mrs. side pocket
13. Richard Cranium
14. YellowDogInGA
15. DebtorsPrison
16. brillig
17. mik
18. thatkid
19. K2
20. LuLu
21. moodyinsavannah
22. norm
23. Egberto Willies
24. Chris Reeves
25. Susan Grigsby
26. spedwybabs
27. Dee Austin
28. Pam Miles
29. Corrie Wikoff
30. Cindi Branham
31. Susan Higgins
32. jlms qkw
33. Larisa Thomason
34. evcoren
35. shermanesq
36. doggie269
37. jpup
38. Sean Wang
39. Steve Stearns
40. loggersbrat
41.
MAYBEES :
SanDiegoDem
JustOneMoreDad
Mrs. JustOneMoreDad
JustOneMoreDad’s kid
momomia
|