Kenna Morton's Journal, 11 Apr 18

I always make the best choice possible, and even come away hungry and take care of my needs later at home. I've learned to love the fellowship, and the food is only secondary. You know the routine. I'm preaching to the choir.  

Any chance of turning the restaurant outings into home visits? Home cooking might be a bit less disastrous salt-wise at least... but that would assume your friends enjoy/have time for cooking...  

Restaurants are the best because there are so many of us. More than 20 sometimes and many of our group are even older than I am and some live with their kids—or their kids live with them. The biggest problem eating out is the sodium content of everything. When you don’t eat a lot of salt, food tastes terrible and your body becomes very sensitive to it. Kills your. Blood pressure. 

It's very difficult to avoid salt unless you eat nothing but whole foods! I love crunchy salty snacks but I track my sodium here in my diary and aim for 1000 mg max.  

The average American eats between 3300 and 5000 mg of salt a day. We should be eating in the neighborhood of 2300 mg. A day if you are healthy and without cardiac issues. A person with cardiac problems should eat in the vacinity of 1500 mg a day. Your body needs salt to function. If you are outdoor active, sweating you need to up your sodium intake to compensate. 1000 mg on an ongoing basis is not enough. Do a little research into this and consider an increase to at least 1500-2000 mega day. 

Pixie722. My post above regarding salt intake is for you. 

Kenna, any idea where 2300 came from as the standard? I am curious if you know. I know I could search Dr Google but wonder if you have an idea.  

"Dr. Google" - I love it! :) Anyway, here's a link to the American Heart Association's take on salt: sodiumbreakup.heart.org/how_much_sodium_should_i_eat - add your own "https://" to the beginning of the link to get there. They agree with Kenna - or maybe Kenna agrees with them :) - 2300 for healthy adults, 1500 for those with heart issues... 

Hmm, even a broken up link gets broken - the end of that link is not "how_mu" but "how_much_sodium_should_i_eat"... 

Well, I have letter indicating I may become a participant in a FH Foundation research study. If I get into the study I wonder if they'd track sodium intake? Hmmmm, I may need to track sodium for a bit and see if I'm North of 2300 mg or not. Thanks FarmerJeannine :)  

No problem - knowledge is power! :) 

Hi Kenna Morton! Thanks for the eye-opening comments. When I decided to limit my sodium to 1000mg/day, I THOUGHT I had done my due diligence... But thanks to you, I revisited the info on the subject and I see that I need to increase my target to 1500mg/day. Geez, I had many days where I came in considerably below 1000mg... Now I see that practice is a dangerous one!!  

Pixie722. I got your request to follow. I used the link that was sent to accept the request but nothing came up. I’m working on it. It has happened before. But happy to have you do so so. 

Terrapin12– that 2300 mg of sodium value is a wisely accepted value in the world of medicine and nutrition. If you are involved in the keto diet that is an entirely different set of circumstances and I would suggest you do some research. Participating in the keto diet makes it MANDATORY that you have good sound information on the whys and what’s in order to do it safely. Fluids and electrolytes are nothing to screw around with. 

Kenna, I resubmitted my request to follow. Thanks 🌼 

Thanks Kenna. I may need to pay better attention to the sodium intake. More to do with readings(blood pressure), then diet. 200-300 grams a day of carbohydrates on average would indicate 'no keto' diet for me. Thanks for the information. 

There was a 2008 study done by UC Davis that reported the brain controls the amount of salt your body actually absorbs and retains. So unless you have kidney issues, it’s not as big a problem as we’ve all been led to believe. You will slough off unneeded salt. It tastes nasty, I will agree, and if you aren’t getting ENOUGH it’s a problem.