Should We Be Worried About Salt?
How many times have you heard that we need to cut down on salt? But... do we actually? What does the science say about salt, our health, and who needs to worry about it? Is pink salt healthier than white salt? Is there such a thing as too low-sodium? In this episode, we chat with Dr. Robert Hunter, a nephrologist and researcher at the University of Edinburgh, to demystify the world of dietary salt. This is everything you need to know about sodium and the real challenge of reducing intake when it's hidden away in the places you least expect it. Get ready to shake up everything you thought you knew about your favorite seasoning.
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Juna: Welcome back to our resolution series. Every single week we are covering one of the most commonly made New Year's resolutions and what the science has to say about it.
Eddie: Before we get into this episode, I'm going to plug that. We are also doing daily episodes over at our membership on exercise, and how to make it a long lasting habit. Every day we're dropping a five minute mini episode, tackling all the most common things that may be holding you back from reaching your fitness goals for 2024. But you're in it for today. What are we going to talk about?
Juna: So today we are tackling something that we've gotten so many questions on over the years and is actually something that we have never addressed, which is honestly really rare because this is year five. I think this is year five of the podcast. Like that's insane. But we've never, ever talked about salt.
Eddie: Salt. When I grew up, I heard that salt was not good. If you had too much of it was going to give you a high blood pressure. I didn't know what that was before I went to medical school and that, you know, just cut back on the salt and I. Yeah. Your food's not going to taste so good.
Juna: As a person who loves to salt their food. Like, every time I'm with my parents, my mom yells at me for how much salt I put on my food. And I'm always telling her, like, mom, it's okay because I don't have high blood pressure. Like it's fine for me. We are going to find out today what is the deal with salt? Is it actually something that we should be worried about, or is it something that we don't have to be so strict about? And is it a good New Year's resolution to make to cut back on your salt.
Eddie: Or is it okay to put a little salt on your vegetables because otherwise they don't taste so good?
Juna: Oh my God, salt makes everything taste better guys, not just vegetables. Also, like, have you noticed every baking recipe? Like there's always a pinch of salt and all these sweet things? Yeah, I think salt makes everything taste better. So on today's episode, how much salt do we need? Is too much salt actually bad for you? What about the different types of salt? And what if you're a person that sweats a lot? Guys, all your saltiest questions will be answered today. I'm Uniqua.
Eddie: And I'm Doctor Eddie Phillips, associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Juna: And you're listening to food. We need to talk, obviously, the Saltiest health podcast around. So welcome to today's episode. Today we are joined by Doctor Robert Hunter who shall further be referred to as Rob. I have been told. Hello Rob, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3: Hello. Thanks for having me.
Juna: Do you want to share a little bit about what your title is?
Speaker 3: I'm a kidney doctor basically, but I'm an academic nephrologist, so that means that I see patients with kidney problems. But I also do research. And I do research into salty things. Is that the best way to summarize it for this podcast?
Juna: Let me tell you guys, this is a tough man to get a hold of because I saw his name at the top of a salt paper and I said, this is the man for the job. And then I had to email him a few times and say, Rob, please, please come on the podcast. But finally, now we get to talk to the wonderful Rob.
Eddie: That's how you know that he's a real doctor, right? Stupid.
Juna: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Eddie: And we're speaking to you. You're at the University of Edinburgh that I did. I pronounce that right.
Rob: Uh, well, you pronounce it the same way that all Americans pronounce it. Um, yeah.
Eddie: Well, how how shall we say it?
Rob: I was I was a bit rude to me. Yeah. So we say Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh I.
Juna: Love that that's the that's what's rude to Scottish people. As Rob said, I was a bit rude that I was like that was so not rude at all. Like, that is not what Americans think is rude. But anyways, let's start with the most simple of questions, which is what is salt? And is there a difference between salt and sodium? Because I think we all get a little bit confused.
Rob: Uh, yeah. So it seems like a simple question is and I think it is a bit there's a few ways that we can get confused. So salt is sodium chloride. So there's sodium in it. Uh, but there's I guess two bits to salt the sodium and it's chloride. And I think most people are familiar with table salt. Uh, so we know that salt comes from the sea, or you can dig out the ground and it looks like that sort of white crystals that you get in the salt shaker. But maybe come on to this, but there's a couple of ways that we can get confused. So one is that sodium can get into food in a number of different forms. So it's often salt sodium chloride. Um, but sometimes it's sodium with something else. So like monosodium glutamate to be an example there. Most salt is actually hidden within foods. So it's not the salt that we add from the salt shaker that forms the majority of the salt that we eat.
Juna: So we don't need to limit, like when we're talking about sodium recommendations, we're not talking about chloride recommendations. It's only the sodium part of salt that we ever worry about.
Rob: So that's a good question. And yes, it's largely the sodium that we worry about. Um, that in itself gets confusing because there's no shortage of recommendations about how much sodium we should eat. And sometimes those recommendations tell us how much salt, how much sodium chloride we should eat. And sometimes it's in grams and sometimes it's in teaspoons, and sometimes it's in, uh, ounces. And and sometimes it's sodium. And the units are different. So it can be very confusing to, to get to grips with that. But you're right, it's mainly the sodium.
Eddie: I think I've got the numbers for the recommended dietary allowance in the US is supposed to be 20 300mg, but they we consume closer to 30 400mg. And that's kind of just about a teaspoon I think is the way that they've put it out. Is that about right or is that with the UK.
Rob: Exactly. Right. But what you're talking about there. So what did you say 2300 to that sodium you're talking about and not salts. But what you've I guess highlighted is that the amount of salt that we're all told to take is much less than the amount of salts that generally people do eat in most Western societies.
Juna: Okay, so I find this very confusing because I don't think I eat that much salt. Rob. Like, truly. But I'm starting to wonder, do things not necessarily taste salty even if they have high sodium? Because sometimes if you turn a package around, like if you get canned beans, it has all the sodium in it, but you're like, this doesn't even taste salty. So it's very deceptive.
Rob: Absolutely, absolutely. And that is exactly the the issue. I guess we're going to come on to maybe going to talk about if it's a problem, because that is a hotly contested issue. But I think it probably is a problem. And one of the problems is that salt is hidden and it's hidden in mainly processed foods. But foods that you're absolutely right, you don't think are salty. So breads, uh, you know, sandwiches that are really common source of dietary salt. But I don't think that we feel that they're salty when we're eating them. Right. But about 75 to 80% of the salt that we take in is hidden within processed foods. And only about 10% of the salt that we take in comes from salt that we've deliberately added from a salt shaker in other parts of the world. So in rural China, for example, most of the salt that's consumed is actually added at the table. I guess that's interesting that different cultures consume salt in different ways, but that also has implications when we think of if we want to cut down on salt, um, if the salt's under discretionary control. So if you know what salt you're eating and you're adding it yourself from a salt shaker, then the sorts of things you can do to cut down on salt are very different from if actually all of the salt you're getting is hidden within processed foods, and it can be very difficult to cut down on salt if it's hidden.
Eddie: Um, well we talk. About ultra processed foods and we talk about them frequently. Food. We need to talk. We talk about foods that have fat in them, that have sweeten them, that have salt in them. And that's not a combination you find in nature. Is there something that draws us, or is salt one of the things that would be part of the addiction that people have for ultra processed foods?
Rob: So that's a great question. And I think the answer is yes. But actually understanding how we crave salt or how we seek salt again gets quite complicated. And I think there's probably three elements to think about. So one is how we perceive salt on the tongue. So how it actually tastes. Let's not go down that rabbit hole right now. But we can maybe talk about that. But actually that can get quite complicated. And then there's the issue of once you've tasted salt and your tongue sends a message to your brain, how does your brain then respond to that? And then people talk about two different things there. They talk about salt appetite and salt preference. And they're subtly different. But it's quite useful, I think, to understand those two things, to sort of get a handle on on your question, and then we'll try and answer it. So salt appetite is a very ancient emotion that lots of animals have. And it's a motivation to eat salt to correct a salt deficiency. And salt is very important. So we're going to talk, I guess a lot about the horrible things that salt too much salt does to us. But of course salt um, like most things, is vital to life. We couldn't live without salt, I guess. Then the question is, does that operate in humans? And actually probably in modern humans? That isn't really a powerful driver, right? Because we are exposed to so much salt. Anyway, the main determinant probably of of whether we seek out salt is this third piece of the puzzle, which is salt preference. So not the taste on the tongue, not this salt appetite but salt preference. And that's a desire to eat salty foods, even if you don't need it. Even if your body isn't deficient in salt, you just for some reason seek it out. And that does seem to be quite well developed in humans, and we don't really know why that is. A lot of studies to try and get to the bottom of that have been done in experimental animals. So we know, um, in mice, for example, you can, uh, do horrible things to mice to find out which bit of the brain it is that is actually responding to the salt. And it looks like it's the same bit of the brain that responds to reward. So, um, dopamine pathways. So I think you're right. Salt is addictive.
Juna: So I have two things to say about this. First of all, when you make cookies or desserts and stuff, you know how they always say, add a pinch of salt. And for some reason it tastes so much better, even though you can, like, barely taste the salt, it makes like the sweetness and stuff taste way better, which I think is really, really interesting. And then the other thing I was going to say is, do we know whether or not there is such a thing as having too little sodium? So this was actually a question that was turned in by one of our foodie fam members, Amanda, and she said that she tracks her sodium really carefully and she doesn't eat much processed food. So sometimes she'll go a day with eating like 500mg of sodium. And is that dangerous to be having something that low or does it not matter? Like is there no way to be eating too little salt?
Rob: Brilliant question. And I would say no, because salt is just so abundant that it's it's almost impossible to eat. Not enough salt. Okay. And I guess there's a few pieces of evidence to back that up. So one is there are people like, um, was it Amanda? Did you say. Yes. So there are, there are whole, you know, groups of people that still live in a world where they aren't exposed to a lot of salt and salt. Researchers have studied them because they're really interesting. So, for example, the Yanomami people in the Amazon, there are a tribe that have yet to be industrialized. So they still live in a, uh, very remote environment. And there are other groups of people around the world that still live in a pre-industrial world, basically. And they have very, very little salt. So they take about, um, a gram of salt a day or half a gram of sodium a day, a quarter of a teaspoon less than that. And it doesn't seem to do them any harm. In fact, it's probably very helpful because they have a nice, healthy, low blood pressure Hmhm got to be a bit careful, I suppose, with that sort of study, because their diet and their lifestyle is different in so many ways from the rest of us, that it would be foolish to just concentrate on the salt intake. But certainly you can you can eat not very much. And it doesn't seem to be, um.
Eddie: And speaking to you as a physician, my understanding or my experience is that when patients have salt on board, if you measure someone's sodium in their blood, that we defend that sodium very well, right? I mean, we're not like if the sodium level were too low, it's almost always because you have too much water on board. It's not that you've actually lost too much salt.
Rob: Yeah, absolutely. And because it's because it's vital to life. And we evolved through periods where we had scarce access to salt. Or when we're going through periods of famine. We have evolved very, very robust defense mechanisms. Absolutely. So if you're short of salt, you will turn on all the hormones, uh, that hold on to salts. You will encourage your kidneys to hold on salt. So that's absolutely there are some people who will be vulnerable to salt if those mechanisms that hold on salt are not working properly. So if you have certain kidney diseases and hormone diseases, if you're, I guess, prone to low blood pressure, you might be taking medicines. So a lot of medicines actually I deliberately designed to get rid of salts from the body. So medicines for high blood pressure. So if you if you're on those medicines then it's possible that you could come to harm from too little salts. But I think for the vast majority of people it isn't a consideration.
Juna: So, Rob, what do we know about the mechanism of how salt actually affects our blood pressure and our kidneys? I didn't even realize the kidneys were the gateway between salt and our blood pressure. I had no idea. So how does that all work?
Rob: So I would say they are, but I'm a, um, a kidney doctor, and I have a special interest in how kidneys work and blood pressure so, so has so many effects on the body and affects the kidneys, affects your hormones, affects your blood vessels, affects your brain. It affects your immune cells, it affects the bacteria that live in your gut. And so it has a really complicated effect on your body. But there's no doubt that kidneys are really important. But it might be helpful to know what your kidneys are doing, because it always amazes me how little people know about what they can do.
Juna: I literally have no idea. I thought kidneys like this is this is my understanding. So maybe I will be a proxy for the listener. All I understood was like they somehow filter your like urine or something in your blood. I don't know, I thought they were like some sort of filtration system. I knew it had something to do with urine and that's kind of all I knew.
Rob: That's exactly what they do. So. But they're filtering your blood all the time, and they're filtering it at an astonishing rate. So your blood is always passing through your kidneys. And so over a 24 hour period, your kidneys will filter about 3 pounds of salt. If you were to lose on that salt, uh, you would very quickly die because you need the salt inside your body. So the salt does lots of things in the body, but essentially it holds on to water. So if you've got salt in your body, but water in your body, and then you've got, you know, a blood to slosh around your circulation. So if you imagine if you, you've only got about a half a pound of salt in your body, so you're filtering, that's six times that amount every day. You're filtering that out of the bloodstream. And so what your kidney does is it reabsorb about 99% of that. So it's a really curious system. It feels like it's wasting a lot of energy. Yeah. There's a good reason why the kidney works in that way, which you definitely don't want to ask me because that will waste the next 15 minutes in focus. But um, but that's the way it works. So. But what that means is that very, very small changes in how the kidney handles salt can actually have really profound effects on how much salt you've got in your body. Because if you imagine even if even if you. So if you reabsorb 99% of the salt and letting 1% go out in the urine, even if that changes just a tiny bit, because it's such a massive amounts of salt that the kidneys are churning through every day, that can have a really big effect on on how much salt you've got to your body. So I think that's why the kidneys are so key in how we respond to salt.
Juna: My understanding of blood pressure as a person who like, doesn't say these things is like it's literally the pressure that your blood is pushing on your arteries or something in your veins, like how much pressure is. Yeah, yeah. Your arteries. Right. How much pressure is in your arteries. So like, why does that have to do with the kidneys filtering salt?
Rob: I think there's an amazing question. Um, because it's something I've thought about for years and I don't really understand it either. The simple explanation is that. So if you think of your circulation as like a plumbing system in your house, uh, if you put more fluid in, if you put more water into your plumbing system or you put more, you know, blood into your bloodstream, then the pressure will go up. Um, that's the simple explanation. So if your kidneys are holding on to more salt and water, then you'll have more volume in the system and the blockage will go up. Oh, God. Um, yeah. But don't mean that day don't make that noise because it's more it's more complicated.
Juna: So that's.
Rob: That I guess.
Juna: I, you know.
Rob: So that's the answer in the medical textbook. And that's a nice explanation. But there's some really weird stuff, uh, that doesn't quite fit with that. So if you look at people who have high blood pressure and you measure the amount of salt they have in the body, it's not always higher than people who have normal blood pressure. Um, it's definitely a bit more complicated, but, um, that's the easiest way to think of it. I think.
Eddie: Um, you know, I just want to share with you that when I was in training, we would go on the teaching rounds in the hospital, so you'd have the senior physician and then the fellows and the residents and all the way down to the medical students, they would, uh, famously shoot questions at that, the most junior people. And sometimes you would ask a question like you did about, you know, what's the effect? And you'd get the young student to kind of stammer and finally say, like, uh, uh. Sorry, sir, I don't know. And and one, uh, firm but kindly, uh, professor turned to the medical student who may or may not have been me, who said, just change that to we don't know and you'll be fine.
Juna: Huh? So basically the gist is that, like, we actually don't truly know the, the mechanism, but the point is that salt does affect blood pressure.
Eddie: But but what's really on the minds of our listeners? I'm speaking for Marilyn from our foodie fam are okay, enough about the salt. Are the different types important? Like you can rob? I don't know about Edinburgh, but you can buy sea salt here. You could buy pink salt. You could buy kosher salt a whole different thing. You could buy salt. That has to be from the Himalayas.
Juna: But people think like pink salt is way healthier for you. For example, like what.
Eddie: This is, what.
Juna: Are these things healthier like, I don't know, I have pink socks I like that's pink. I'll just disclose.
Rob: I think that's the best reason to have pink salt. I think that is the best reason because, um, so first of all, the I mean, I mentioned that the whole issue of salt being unhealthy was controversial for decades, and that's despite the fact that there has been billions of pounds spent on research into salt in literally millions of human subjects and all these kind of animal experiments as well. And we're sort of finally reaching a consensus on that. So the amount of time and effort that's been spent investigating the health properties of the other, uh, minority salts or whatever we're going to call them, we just don't know. But I think although they differ slightly in a chemical composition, most of these other salts, like pink salt, you know, Himalayan rock salt, whatever that they are largely sodium chloride. So I would I would view them. It's to me it's not very likely they're going to have exactly the same health effects as cheap table salts. Um, but if you like pink, by all means by pink salt.
Eddie: Well, I'll take it a step further. You can go to Trader Joe's. It's a very popular store here in the States. And we don't just settle for pink salt at our house. We. We bought the thing that has seven different colors of salts in these beautiful, like, test long test tubes so that I could read a recipe which suggests like at this point you want to sprinkle the bluish color salt on top of the food for, I guess, the esthetics of it, because from what you're saying, Rob, it's not like it's any healthier or less healthy.
Juna: Well, I have a question that is, isn't it? What gives it the other colors like the other minerals in it? Like the thing that makes pink, salt, pink I think is other minerals. I don't actually know.
Rob: I know, I think that's correct, but I think they're they're at such low cost. You know, I think I think it's still, um.
Juna: Negligible.
Rob: Yeah. I also don't I mean, I don't know a lot about it, but my understanding of it is that there's such negligible concentrations that it's effectively salt. Got it. There is one big exception to all of this, which is salt that has been deliberately substituted with potassium. So that's sometimes called low salts. There's a brand of it called low salt. But there are salts that have been deliberately manufactured. Paradoxically, I don't think they're sort of marketed necessarily as being healthy and trendy in the same way that pink salt is. But, um, but that is very healthy. So. Oh, so, so potassium chloride or potassium, it's very good at lowering blood pressure. So you can have, uh, salts where some of the sodium chloride, normally about a quarter of it has been swapped out for potassium chloride. And that is good for you. Um, and actually that type of salt has been studied in very big medical trials. And in some of those trials, if you can increase consumption of that type of salt instead of sodium chloride, you can reduce the pressure, you can, uh, reduce strokes and you can reduce death rate even.
Eddie: We're going to be right back to continue our conversation with doctor Rob Hunter from the University of Edinburgh. And we're back with doctor Rob Hunter of the University of Edinburgh. And we're talking all about salt.
Juna: Two more. Just like sorry for these curveball questions, but these are also from our foodie fan listeners. Um, the importance of iodized salt. Like why was iodine added to salt? I had no idea. And then also MSG somebody asked about like is MSG really bad for you?
Rob: Great questions. And now I'm going to have to dredge. So iodized salt. So I remember learning about this in medical school a very long time ago. So I'm going to say something that I hope is correct. There are parts of the world where iodine is deficiency. You tend to find iodine in seawater near the coast. So if you live near the coast, you're fine. But if you live inland, there isn't much iodine kicking around. And if you don't have enough iodine, then your thyroid hormones, uh.
Juna: Yes.
Rob: Aren't made properly. So you end up with thyroid problems. So I think adding iodine to salt, uh, was a measure to address that.
Juna: And then MSG.
Rob: So MSG is monosodium glutamate. So there's a sodium in there as well. The difference is that instead of a chloride, as you get in table salt that's been swapped for a glutamine or a glutamate. So the sodium element is still there and is still likely to be unhealthy for all the same reasons. So you know it will put your blood pressure up. There are some intriguing differences, actually between sodium chloride and monosodium glutamate. Partly this comes back to what we're talking about right at the beginning. And that, you know what? What effect does salt have on the brain and on the tongue? There's some really intriguing work that shows if you give the same amount of sodium, it tastes less salty. If you give it as monosodium glutamate than if you give it as sodium chloride, um.
Juna: You're more likely to need more of it.
Rob: Well, it tastes that salty, so yes, I think so. To get the same kind of salty hit, uh, you might need more of it. But on the other hand, the glutamate ion I think is also tasted. Isn't that what gives you the umami? So you guys know more about this than me. So I think you'll get a kind of a double hit from MSG. Uh, because you get the salt, which you'll be programed to, to like, and you'll get the glutamate hits as well. But in terms of the saltiness, if you're given, as, you know, the same amount of sodium, it tasteless salty sodium glutamate, which is curious, isn't it? But it's probably just to do with the fact that the glutamate ion is much bigger than chloride ions. So then it just takes longer for the salt to actually sort of get to the taste receptors on the tongue.
Juna: Got it. So okay. Um, I think the biggest question that I have about this now is whether we need to worry about salt. If it's not in the context of processed food, it seems like the big way you can get in trouble with salt is in processed food, because it's hidden a lot of things that aren't even salty, and then you don't realize how much salt you're having. It affects your blood pressure. But if you don't eat a lot of processed food and you're just thinking about, like, your table salt, should you be worried about like salting your food too much? Like, my mom always yells at me when she sees how much salt I put on my salad. And I keep telling her, like mom, like salt on my salad is not the salt we need to be worried about. But she doesn't believe me, so that's my crush.
Rob: Well, I you're probably right, but it depends how much salt you're putting on your salad, I guess. But, uh, it's it's like.
Juna: I don't know, salty guys, I swear. Anyway, sorry. No, I.
Rob: Think you're right. So I guess one of the promise of dietary research in general. And again, I'm sure you know, and your listeners know a lot more about this that I do, but it's very hard to change one component of your diet or to study one component of your diet. Because. Because if you change one thing, you'll be changing a load of other things. So if you're eating a diet that is mainly processed, it will have lots of salt in it, but it will be horribly unhealthy and all sorts of other ways. Uh, which which we've already talked about. If you're eating a mainly unprocessed, lots of fresh fruit vegetables diet, then it will be low in salt, but it will also be high in potassium, for example, and high in lots of other things that are generally healthy. I think it's probably easiest to think of it in that way, because that's the way that you can make changes to your diet, right? You can make those sorts of wholesale changes that will end up with you taking less salt. But we also have all sorts of other beneficial effects.
Eddie: What about, uh, at least in the States, there's a somewhat increasingly popular move towards sports drinks and, um, sort.
Juna: Of sports drinks.
Eddie: Salty drinks, sports supplements that are actually salt to put into your, your water while you're exercising.
Juna: Um, for people who like sweat a lot, this is actually from our listener, Nicole. If you're sweating a lot or you're exercising a lot. Do you need more salt?
Rob: Yeah. So you do. Um, and actually, I guess that we talked a bit about, um, is it is it ever dangerous to not have enough salt? And I guess that would be another group of people in whom you do need to keep up with your salt intake. So excessive sweating, I guess, for medical conditions aren't there, like cystic fibrosis, where you tend to lose a lot of salt in your sweat. Um, but I guess if you're not sweating heavily and you're taking in fancy salty drinks, uh, then that will end up probably causing problems, I guess is the big debate isn't. About whether we need to worry about it. So there's a school of thought that says, well, if your blood pressure is not high, why are you worrying about it? Because that's the main adverse effect of salt.
Juna: Yeah. So should we be worrying about it?
Rob: Well, I have quite a lot of patients with high blood pressure because most of the patients I see have kidney problems. And if you have kidney problems for the reasons we've alluded to, you end up with high blood pressure. And one of the things that people always ask me is, what can I do myself, you know, for my health. And one of the things, if you have high blood pressure that I think is helpful is to cut out the amount of salt in your diet. And I think if I had high blood pressure, I'd want to do that. I think if you don't have high blood pressure, it's harder to make the case because what problem is the salt causing? I guess what it's causing is a predisposition to high blood pressure. But if you're keeping an eye on your blood pressure, that might be okay. And life without salt is pretty miserable. So I so although, you know, I've read a lot about salt, I've thought a lot about salt. I'm well aware of the health problems it can cause, but I love salt, so I have it. Um, everything in moderation.
Juna: Well, it seems like if you don't have high blood pressure from or sorry, if you don't have high blood pressure period, then maybe just focusing on reducing ultra processed foods in your diet will like not only get rid of a bunch of salt, but also have all these other health benefits that we know come with reducing ultra processed food. So like that can be a much bigger thing to focus on than like the sodium in your brownie, maybe like, how do I how can I stop having the brownie without feeling miserable? Like, oh, maybe I like fruit, this fruit better or whatever? That would be a much better kind of health change.
Rob: That's absolutely true. One other thing that's really fascinating, and maybe worth knowing about is that you can. It is miserable transitioning to a low salt diet. I don't know if you've if you've ever tried to do that, but if you've ever made a deliberate decision to cut the amount of salt in your diet out, then food tastes bland for a while. But interestingly, if you keep going, um, and this has been studied, if you keep going for a few months, your taste threshold resets and foods that was tasting bland will start to taste nice again. And I don't think we understood that. That's been known since the 1980s. And again, I think that's one of those sort of really interesting facts, but we don't really understand how that works. But something either your brain and your tongue will retrain. So if you are thinking about cutting the amount of salt in your diet and you and you're two days in and feeling miserable, carry on. Because if you can, if you get through a few months and actually you'll find that food starts tasting great again, and then when you go back to have the sort of salty levels that you were having before, it will taste disgusting, because the salt will then become sort of aversive and unpalatable.
Eddie: There's there's been proposals that American food manufacturers should sort of collectively start to slowly cut down on the amount of salt put into the foods, with the idea that we could all change our our predilection for the salt or the taste. The problem is that everyone has to do it. That was.
Juna: Another one. They all have to agree to it, or some of them are going to taste better than others.
Eddie: Right?
Rob: So, so historically, that is the only strategy that has worked well for reducing salt intake. So if you ask people to reduce their salt intake, they can't do it. And they can't do it because salt is so addictive. And it's you know, it's a hard thing to do a bit like, you know, giving up smoking Reddit, you know, any of the other things that are hard to do. And also because in Western societies we don't have discretionary control over our salt because it's hidden within processed foods. But Finland is a great example. So the Finns decided to do this some years ago, that as a nation they were going to, you know, take a really holistic, uh, strategy involving industry, involving the government and legislation, and they cut their salt intake very successfully. The UK have taken a similar approach in and have done it successfully. So, um, that sort of approach is the one that's most likely to to reap benefits.
Juna: Finland is always doing the coolest things, guys. I just have to say, every, every single time somebody does something about Finland, they're doing the coolest things.
Rob: The Finns are.
Juna: Cool. Rob, I have two final questions for you. First of all, do you yourself make New Year's resolutions? Very important question.
Rob: Uh, I make them, uh. I don't always keep that. Always keep them, though.
Juna: The pause, the pregnant pause.
Eddie: I will stop right there. I make them.
Juna: Okay. And my second question is, should people actually have to reduce salt as a New Year's resolution? And if not, what do you think is a better one?
Rob: I think there are probably lots of better ones actually. It's so depressing making the same resolution year after year, because then you just face the fact that you never you never follow it through. So if you've run out of resolutions and you want a new one, cutting answer isn't a bad one to have. I think if you've got high blood pressure, um, it's a very good one to have. I think probably, uh, as we've talked about making more sort of wholesale changes to your diet, like eating more fresh fruit, vegetables would be a better resolution. Uh, probably do more. Size, uh, might be a better resolution if you smoke than the best resolution you can try and make is to stop smoking, because that has a, you know, a bigger effect on your health and salt. Um, so I'd say it's not not a bad one. Um, but there might be a few other better ones as well.
Juna: Perfect. Thank you so much.
Rob: Thank you.
Eddie: Thank you.
Juna: Thank you so much to doctor Rob Hunter for not getting salty with us. When we were asking him all our questions about salt. We'll link to his work on our website if you want to hang out with us daily in January, go to food. We need to talk.com/membership to help kickstart your exercise habit for the year. You can find us at food we Need to Talk on Instagram. You can find me at the official Unite on Instagram and Juniata on YouTube and TikTok. You can find Eddie trying.
Eddie: One of those, uh, salt substitutes just to see what it's like.
Juna: Oh, the what was it called?
Eddie: New salt.
Juna: Salt. Low salt.
Eddie: Yeah, I that there's a few different ones.
Juna: Food we need to talk is a production of Pyrex.
Eddie: Our senior producer is Morgan Flannery and our producers are Megan after Matt and Samantha Gasic.
Juna: Tommy Missourian is our mix engineer.
Eddie: Jocelyn Gonzalez is executive producer for PR X productions.
Juna: Food We Need to Talk was co-created by Kerry Goldberg, George Hicks, Eddie Phillips and me.
Eddie: For any personal health questions, please consult your personal health provider. To find out more, go to food. We need to talk.com.
Juna: Thanks for.
Eddie: Listening.
Juna: He almost did.
Eddie: Do it again. Let's do it.
Juna: Again. No, no, we're leaving you. We're leaving yet? You didn't care to thank him for this? Thanks for listening, guys. I'm the only one who cares about you.
