Day Two: Might as well face it, you're addicted to salt

Well, day 2 in the endeavor did not go according to plan calorie-wise, however I did stay on track with the vegan “restrictions.” I put the word, restrictions, in quotes because I didn’t really eat in a restricted manner at all on Saturday. The day started well, with scrambled tofu (half a block of tofu with one chopped, green pepper and half a chopped red onion in one tablespoon of olive oil with garlic powder, cumin, paprika, red pepper flakes, black pepper, and salt). I realized during the scrambling of the tofu that I had left one of my key ingredients at home in PA – the nutritional yeast. Unfortunately, this missing ingredient made a significant difference in the palatability of my tofu so I added even more salt to the tofu than I normally would have. You may have noticed in the photo I posted that Leah, my parents’ rescue Cairn, finds the tofu appetizing even without the nutritional yeast!

After breakfast, I was chilling in my parents’ living room and noticed that they had an issue of Prevention Magazine (January 2011) sitting on their coffee table. Interestingly enough, one of the items on the cover read “The Food Addiction that’s making you fat” – given the conversation I had with Tater yesterday I found this interesting. You see, we had discussed with some weird eating behaviors – for example, at times, I get so excited about what I’m eating that I will eat-not until I’m satisfied-but until I’m uncomfortable (or as my sister’s friend Molly calls it “uncomfortafull”). It reminds me of addictive behavior – jonesing for something really bad and then going overboard with it when you finally have it in your hands. So, I thought that I couldn’t have found this article on food addictions at a better time.

I turn to page 18 of the magazine and learn that salt is the problem apparently. At the beginning of the article there is a multiple choice question: Which of the following is true of salt? A. It’s addictive, B. It will make you fat, C. It will kill you, and D. All of the above. The article starts by telling us that the correct answer to this is “D.” Wow, how did I miss this in all of my nutrition classes? Note - Since it can be difficult to express sarcasm in the written word, let me point out my use of it in the preceding question.

The interesting thing about salt is that not everyone responds to it with increased blood pressure – not everyone is what they would call “salt sensitive.” There are many factors that influence blood pressure (e.g., weight loss, smoking cessation, exercise, increasing intakes of potassium & calcium, reducing alcohol intake to <1 drink per day, just to name a few) and while there are some groups in which salt restriction is a matter of life and death (dialysis patients, CHF patients), this is not the case for the majority of us (FYI, trial and error with a low-salt diet paired with blood pressure readings can determine if one is salt sensitive). So while I can see how the answer “C” is true for a portion of the population, I’m surprised to see it being mentioned as if it is the primary issue all of us face in our fight against weight gain and obesity.

The idea that salt is “addictive” and that it will “make you fat” is something I’ve been hearing anecdotally but not something I’ve come across in any nutrition textbook. The article in Prevention (“Adapted” from The Salt Solution by Heather K. Jones), does note that salt is often paired with fat in some less healthy food choices like chips and cheeseburgers, so it makes sense that consuming some high sodium foods might lead to weight gain – but it isn’t the sodium causing the weight gain here, it’s the calories. Then, as I continue to browse the article I find it – the one erroneous statement that makes me want to ignore everything I might have learned from the article. The article states that after we eat these high sodium foods we turn to sugar-filled beverages which add calories (fair enough, since this is supported by research) but apparently choosing diet soda instead of regular isn’t acceptable because “they’re full of sodium.” Hmmm…Last time I checked a 12 oz can of soda contains about 50mg of sodium – compare this to the conventionally-considered-healthy beverage, milk, which has over 100mg of sodium per 8 ounces! I’m not arguing that diet sodas are a healthy choice as much as I’m noting the article’s use of provocative statements to scare us into eating a certain way (and most likely trying to scare us into purchasing the book, The Salt Solution). I started to laugh by the time I got the end of the article because apparently the solution we need to fight the “Food Addiction that’s making you fat” is to follow a diet with three 300 calorie meals along with a 300 calorie mineral boost juice (http://www.prevention.com/health/health/health-concerns/how-to-kick-the-salt-habit/article/3bd0b810e847c210VgnVCM10000030281eac____/6). (Sarcastic girl says, “oh, in this case, it’s the sodium restriction that will make me thin…not the fact that I’d be restricting myself to 1200 calories per day…)

I can sit here and critique this article somewhat anonymously on the internet and feel really smart. But that doesn’t change the fact that I went out and ate a dinner that contained, oh, about 3000mg of sodium in one sitting and that my entire day’s worth of sodium intake was over four times what is recommended for someone with my individual characteristics. You could argue that the whole point of my critiquing the article was to distract you, the readers, from the fact that I deviated from my caloric goal of 1800 calories per day, consuming an actual 2262 calories over the course of my Saturday. So is there some truth to the article? I found myself contemplating this at 1am while watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and eating a nice salty handful of Tortilla chips.

Yes, I was definitely a deviant dieter on Saturday, following up my salty Tofu Scramble with Dinner at Bangkok Garden in New Haven (two vegetarian spring rolls and an order of vegetarian Pad Thai, no fish sauce, no egg), a vegan chocolate cupcake from Claire’s, and then the 1am Chips and Salsa munch with my sister, Cynthia. Even though I was concerned about the caloric intake, I learned from a brief computer analysis that I still took in about 150 calories less than what is required for weight maintenance (so yay for that) and this was probably substantially less than what I normally would have consumed on a Saturday in CT. And to quote the No Meat Athlete, “I'm not ashamed that there's a lot of vegan junk food here — during a diet change like this, I'm absolutely content to have my nutrition take a hit while I adjust psychologically to the added restrictions.” (http://www.nomeatathlete.com/vegan-grocery-list/).

So, as I complete this blog on a Sunday morning over my black cup of decaffeinated coffee, I leave you with the following question: if I add extra salt to this morning’s Tofu Scramble will this get me addicted to tofu and make me fat? Just wondering…