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8 sets to be given away each week!

Answers:

1. Lower sodium content helps in reducing the risks of

Many clinical studies, including the frequently cited Intersalt Study, have established that salt intake is significantly and independently related to blood pressure, which in turn leads to heart disease.

Based on studies done in countries like Korea, Colombia, South America, and Italy, a high salt intake was associated with an elevated risk of stomach cancer. A recent study reported in the British Journal of Cancer (2004) also found that people who ate a regular diet of highly salted food doubled their risk of stomach cancer.

Salt is also known as the calcium thief, that is, the more salt you consume, the more calcium you lose in your urine. Furthermore, people with high blood pressure lose more calcium in urine than those with normal blood pressure. To compensate, your body increases calcium absorption and when there isn’t enough calcium in your diet, your body starts using up the calcium reserves in your bones. Calcium loss leads to thinning of the bones, and in severe cases, osteoporosis. Beyond bone loss, if the concentration of calcium in the urine is high, crystals may form that may go on to form kidney stones, leading to kidney disease.

2. The recommended (max) daily salt intake for adults is 5g (or 1 teaspoonful). An average Singaporean’s daily salt intake is about ___.

According to the Health Promotion Board, a person should take in no more than one teaspoon or 5g of salt a day. But nine out of ten Singaporeans take 9gof salt a day, which is almost twice the recommended amount.

3. The liking for salt is an acquired habit. You can unlearn this simply by consuming less salt. Is this true?

The liking for common salt (99% sodium chloride) is an acquired habit. The more salt we consume, the more we crave it. And this is true for all people! Eaton and Konner reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that the function and structure programmes in our genes have been “written” for a low-sodium diet without any added salt, and for a high-potassium and high-magnesium diet containing at least 2-3 times more potassium and magnesium than the average present diets which have been “refined” by the food industry. Research also revealed that early humans ate a diet that contained much less salt compared to modern day’s diet.  In fact, it is established that babies have no liking for salt, but by 2 or 3 years old, children prefer salted foods to the same foods, unsalted. Physiologically, salt desensitises your tongue, therefore gradually foods taste bland without salt or at the same amount of salt, and your tongue needs increased dosage of salt over time to get the same ‘kick’, to make foods taste ‘good’. We become unable to taste and enjoy the natural flavours of foods. Conversely, once we cut down on salt, our salt taste receptors will regain their sensitivity, and hence we can unlearn our habit of liking of salt.

4. Pansalt has half (56%) the sodium chloride of common salt. Using Pansalt everyday in all your foods will reduce your average salt intake from 9g to ___.

This is pure mathematics. 56% of 9g equals to 0.56 x 9 = 5.04g.