- According to the WHO, high sodium consumption causes the death of 3 million people in the world per year and, on average, twice the recommended amount is consumed.
- Professionals from the health group at the Hospital del Vinalopó and the Denia Health Department recommend healthy snacks and plan meals and remember that excess salt negatively affects blood pressure, osteoporosis, kidney stones and some types of cancer
Summer is the season of the year in which we usually have more free time, leisure and social contact. For this reason, it is more common for us to neglect our daily diet and abuse prepared foods. The problem, according to Marina Escudero, nutritionist and nurse at the Ribera healthcare group at the Denia II Integrated Health Center, in the Denia Health Department, is that most fast food, precooked, cold cuts, sausages, pickles, pickles, food preparations such as instant noodles, pizzas, sandwiches or wraps, as well as dry bread, snacks, powdered soup or ultra-processed cheeses have much more salt than recommended. "Any food with more than 1.25 grams of salt per 100 grams or milliliters of product is high in salt and we should avoid it," he says.
Fully agrees with her Carmen Navarro, head of the Nutrition Unit of the Vinalopó University Hospital, a health center that is also managed by the Ribera health group in Elche. "World Health Organization (OMS) recommends for the general adult population with a healthy life and without prolonged exertion, the average consumption of 5 g of salt per day, which is equivalent to a full teaspoon of salt (coffee spoon size) or 2 g of sodium per day. ", Explain.
In fact, he adds, in Spain the intake of salt and sodium far exceeds the healthy recommendations, as shown by the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN), which ensures that 9,7 g of salt are ingested per day. Although Marina Escudero qualifies that sodium, "necessary for the proper functioning of our body, is already naturally present in food." Therefore, she assures, "all the salt that we add, whether it is table salt or that which is contained in processed foods, is unnecessary."
In fact, the WHO also recalls that high sodium intake is the cause of more than three million deaths a year in the world. Carmen Navarro recalls, for example, that an excessive consumption of salt negatively affects blood pressure, which causes different cardiovascular pathologies, and in addition, it can influence the worsening of other diseases such as osteoporosis, causing a greater predisposition to bone fractures, for example, renal lithiasis or certain types of cancer.
To avoid falling into improvisation and fast and ultra-processed foods, nutritionists from the Ribera health group recommend buying fresh food and, above all, planning meals to make the most of leisure time and vacations with family and friends. "The ideal is to take healthy dishes and prepare healthy snacks, to avoid excess salt," says Marina Escudero, and proposes as healthy, tasty and easy appetizers hummus with carrots or cucumber, natural nuts or roasted without salt, lupins, pickles well rinsed, salads, grilled or raw vegetables in the form of sticks, tzatziki (a Turkish dish made with yogurt, cucumber, water and garlic), fresh cheese, fruit, fruit shakes with milk, gazpachos and cold creams of vegetables.
Also, remember the importance of proper hydration, not only based on water but also foods rich in water, but not salt. "Although in summer we have greater losses of water and electrolytes, an increase in the intake of salt is not recommended in that season, but rather an increase in the intake of water and foods rich in it," he says.
