There is a major change in the 2022 edition of dietary guidelines for Chinese residents just released more than a month ago: the recommended daily salt intake has dropped from 6G in 2016 to less than 5g. Although this change is small, its importance should not be underestimated. It shows that salt control is a very necessary item in our daily dietary habits. How does salt help the human body? Why is excessive salt intake harmful to human health? If you are worried about mastering the scale of salt intake, today we recommend some easy-to-use salt control tips, so that we won't talk about "salt" discoloration. High salt diet is one of the high risk factors of hypertension Salt is an indispensable seasoning in daily life, and it is also an important material to maintain the normal development of human body. Its main component is sodium chloride. When table salt forms a solution in the human body, it will be decomposed into sodium ions and chloride ions, which play different roles respectively. Sodium ion can maintain the whole body blood volume and cell osmotic pressure, maintain the normal excitability and stress of nerves and muscles, and activate human muscle contraction and other functions; Chloride ion can help regulate the acid-base balance of human body, produce gastric acid and activate amylase, which are very important for life activities. However, long-term intake of too much salt or too salty taste will increase the risk of hypertension. High salt diet is one of the high risk factors of hypertension. High salt diet can increase the volume of extracellular fluid and blood volume, cause the increase of cardiac output, increase the sodium and water in vascular smooth muscle cells, cause swelling, make the lumen smaller, increase the resistance of peripheral blood vessels, and thus increase hypertension. The food we eat in our daily life can be divided into high salt food, medium salt food and low salt food according to the salt content. High salt food refers to food with salt content ≥ 1.5g per 100g and sodium content ≥ 0.6g per 100g; Medium salt food refers to the food with 0.3-1.5g salt content and 0.1-0.6g sodium content per 100g; Low salt foods refer to foods with salt content less than 0.3 g per 100 g and sodium content less than 0.1 g per 100 g. According to this set of data, you can compare them on the food packaging, that is, the nutritional composition table in the label of prepackaged food. Is the salt content of common food in our life excessive? It should be noted that there are two sources of salt: one is from the salt added during cooking, accounting for about 80% of the total; The other part comes from the salt contained in the food itself, accounting for about 20%. Therefore, try to eat less high salt food and condiments, such as soy sauce, mustard, pickled vegetables, yellow sauce, monosodium glutamate, etc. Here are some foods we often come into contact with. Let's introduce the salt content of their food: a spoonful of 15ml soy sauce contains about 5g, and a spoonful of 15g bean paste also contains 5g. The salt content of a small piece of tofu milk (10g) is 1g, and the salt content of a salted egg is 2.5G; For cooked meat products, for example, the salt content of a 100g ham sausage is 2.5G, and the salt content of a 100g canned meat is 2G. The above are intuitive foods that must add salt. However, you may not pay special attention to the "invisible salt" content in the following foods. For example, if you eat two pieces of ordinary sliced bread in the morning, the salt content is 1g, which consumes one fifth of the recommended salt intake for the whole day; Another example is processed bean products, such as 100 grams of dried tofu, with 3 grams of salt; The salt content of 100 grams of dried noodles is about 3 grams in general. There is also a small snack that people usually like to eat. If you don't feel much after one mouthful, you may have already ingested a lot of salt. For example, 100g salty biscuits contain 2G salt; Salty nuts, such as 50g salty melon seeds, have a salt content of 1.5g, while 100g orchid beans have a salt content of 3G; Salty aquatic products such as Haimi contain 4 grams of salt per 30 grams. Knowing the salt content of these common foods, combined with the current "dietary guidelines for Chinese residents (2022)" that the daily salt intake of adults should not exceed 5g, we can try to "know" when eating. Four skills for daily salt control After knowing the salt content of food, how can we control salt in our daily life? Salt control skill 1: use salt limiting spoon and salt limiting pot to control the amount of salt used in household cooking The capacity of the salt limiting spoon is based on the flat spoon. If a family of 4 has three meals a day, use 2G salt spoons, and the maximum amount of salt in a day shall not exceed 12 spoons. If other high salt and medium salt foods are used at the same time, or there are patients with hypertension at home, the consumption of salt should be reduced on this basis. If you can't remember how many teaspoons of table salt are used for cooking every day, it is recommended to use a salt limiting pot, that is, before cooking every day, calculate the total amount of salt used on that day according to the daily recommended intake of the whole family, and put it into the salt limiting pot at one time to ensure that the salt added on that day does not exceed the level of the salt limiting pot. Salt control skill 2: use less high salt seasoning, eat less pickled food and / or processed meat products In the cooking process, put less soy sauce or sauce, etc. when adding soy sauce or sauce, reduce the addition of salt; Eat less pickles, pickles, salted eggs and other pickled foods, and less processed meat and meat products such as ham, canned fish, canned meat and so on. Choose fresh animal food such as livestock, poultry, eggs and milk. Salt control skill 3: use low sodium salt in cooking Low sodium salt is based on common table salt and contains about 30% potassium chloride. It is characterized by low sodium content and high potassium content. It is in line with the principle of 1:1 optimal ratio of sodium and potassium ions recommended by who. Low sodium salt can prevent cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as hypertension, stroke and coronary heart disease. It is worth noting that people with chronic renal failure, renal insufficiency or hyperkalemia or taking potassium preserving diuretics should be cautious or follow the doctor's advice. At the same time, do not increase the intake of salt because of the use of low sodium salt. The key to salt control is to control the intake. Salt control skill 4: use natural seasoning or seasoning The cooking of food materials should reduce the addition of salt, and natural condiments such as onion, ginger, garlic, pepper and prickly ash should be used to improve the color, aroma and taste of food and make up for the lack of saltiness. (outlook new era)