Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Thanks PHCentral for Your Comments

We thank PHCentral, a resource for patients with Pulmonary Hypertension for their kind reference to us recently.

Here is what they said:


Counting Calories From Fat? You're Probably Getting Extra Salt.
  • Do you ever see food products on the shelf claiming to be low in fat and low in sodium too? Probably not. There are very good reasons why.

    In the never-ending search for tasty food products, manufacturers have learned from numerous focus groups what Americans want in the way of taste. We all seem to crave too much salt, confusing salt for taste in general. Fat is also a taste enhancer in foods, so when it is eliminated from a product or reduced, the flavor goes down, too. The manufacturers may make up for the deficit by increasing the salt content. Your good intentions in choosing low fat foods may actually be doing you harm.

    Also, don't assume when a product claims to bes "reduced salt" it is necessarily low in salt. Soy sauce, for example, comes in regular and reduced sodium, but check out the numbers. While the sodium may be less in the reduced sodium version, it's still a whopping amount per tablespoon. One Tamari sauce sold on Amazon claims the reduced-sodium version is twenty-five percent lower than the standard product. This is not low!

    Let's face it, it's a mine-field out here, but as a PH patient, you may want to shift your focus from carbs or fat to sodium in the foods you eat.

    Further Reading:

    In researching this subject, we found a grassroots website that discusses many aspects of this dilemma including product examples you'll want to know about. Check it out at: Low Salt Low Fat.com

    You'll also find an excellent resource for home cooks looking for low sodium recipe ideas at: Low Sodium, Low Salt, Heart Healthy Cooking

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