via Instagram http://ift.tt/1DwCdeZ
Sunday, February 15, 2015
50 Shades of Salt
Humans
are made of salt. It is as integral to our existence as water: without salt we
would die. Throughout human civilization salt has played an important role in
culture by way of; economics, religion, war, and consumption. Salt dates back
since before recorded history. As for recorded history, we see salt as early as
2700 BC China in the Peng-Tazao-Kan-Mu. One of the earliest treatise on
pharmacology which had a major section devoted to a discussion of more than 40 different
kinds of salt. Also describing two main ways to extract salt and convert it
into a usable form.
Roman
soldiers were known as "Salarium Argentum", since many Roman soldiers
were paid with salt. Salt makes several appearances in the English language.
For instance the words; "salary", "salad", "sausage",
and "sauce" are all derived from the Latin "Sal" meaning "salt".
In Greece salt was an important commodity and was used in the exchange of
slaves and is where we get the meaning of "not worth his salt."
Looking at religion we see salt making its appearance with it being referenced
more than 30 times in the Bible, in such references as "salt of the
earth" and "holy salt." Salt has been the symbol of purity,
incorruptibility, and immunity lending itself to religious ideology and
incorporation.
Today
salt is as much a part of our culture as it has always been. We use salt in
most facets of our lives, most of the time without even realizing it. Most all
foods contain salt in one shape or another, we use slat on our roads, in
chemical processes, water purification, and many other areas. There are many
ways in which we get our salt. The two main ways are drying sea water and
mining. The drying process is the same technique as our ancestors, involving
several pools or salt brine water in various states of salinity. The over
arching goal of this process is to evaporate the water out leaving behind the
salt and minerals. Then the salt is cleaned and set to the market. The other
main way to get salt is by mining it from slat deposits. In the United States
we have several large salt mines. One such mine is located under Lake Erie. The
Cargill mine under Lake Erie has been in operation for over 50 years, and owned
by Cargill since 1997. The mine is located 1,800 feet below Lake Erie and is
approximately 4 square miles. In 2013 the Cargill mine was temporarily closed due
to suspected convergence, the mine was later reopened after ODNR inspectors and
mine staff determined a solution to the problem.
Salt in
our diet has undergone several changes over the last few years, with the FDA
putting further recommended restrictions on salt intake. Most of the restrictions
are aimed at lowering obesity and cardiovascular disease. This is because as sodium
accumulates, the body retains water in order to dilute the extra sodium. This
leads to an increase in the amount of fluid surrounding cells and the volume of
blood in the bloodstream. As the volume of blood increases it makes the heart
work harder, and puts more pressure on blood vessels. Over time this can lead
to high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and congestive heart failure.
There are a number of health concerns related to too much sodium intake. While
too much sodium is inherently bad, conversely too little sodium intake can be
just as detrimental to human health. In recent studies scientists have been
finding that the "Goldilocks Zone" for salt consumption is between 4
and 6 grams per day. Greatly more than the FDA's recommended 1.5 and 2.3 grams
per day. As more studies are conducted the truth about how much salt we should
consume will be identified. Today it would appear that the studies being
conducted are pointing towards the same conclusion, that too little sodium can
be just as detrimental to health as too much. Just some food for thought.
Food labeling through time
Over the course of the last 150 years our food labels have
undergone drastic changes. If we go all the way back to the 13th century we
will find the first steps toward food labeling. When the king of England made a
proclamation of The Assize of Bread, which
basically stated that bakers could no longer add ground peas and beans into their
bread mix. Moving forward to modern times with President Lincolns Department of
Agriculture and the Bureau of Chemistry (the predecessor of the FDA). We see
the first large scale attempt of government regulatory organizations. Jumping
ahead again to 1971 we see the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) adding
saccharin to its list of GRAS or (generally recognized as safe). In 1977 we see the first and sadly not the
last demonstration of the power that big industry hold over political policies.
The Saccharin Study and Labeling Act is passed by Congress, this act stops the
FDA from banning saccharin. This act does however require that any food that contains
saccharin to be labeled stating that saccharin had been found to cause cancer
in laboratory animals. In 1990 the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act is
passed. This is where the labels we see today first come into fruition. The
NLEA requires foods to have nutrition labels, and that any health claim to be consistent
with the terms set by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. In 2010
nutrition labels only need to consider 4 main nutrients as directed by the
Institute of Medicine. Calories, Saturated Fat, Trans-Fat, and Sodium are the 4
nutrients that are to be considered. Also in 2010 the USDA requires meat to
show nutrition data starting in early 2012. As of 2014 the FDA has proposed
changes to nutrition labels of food. Some of these changes are to focus more on
calories, update the serving sizes and to change how sugar is displayed. Specifically
to have the serving sizes more in line with actual consumption values, and to
have added sugar shown apart from natural occurring sugar.
The FDA has
many guidelines for food labels, such as just how much space of the package is
devoted to the nutrition labels. The location and placement label statements,
and getting as nitty gritty as to what fonts can be used, the font size of
greater the 1/16th of an inch based on the lowercase letter "o".
Looking at the nutrition label itself we can see 6 main areas; the Serving
Size, Calories, area 3 and 4 are lumped together into the Nutrient Section, the
Footnote Section, and finely the Percent Daily Value area. The serving size
area is the guideline for the calorie and nutrition sections. Depending on how many
servings the consumer is going to consume determines what the other areas must
be multiplied by in order to obtain an accurate measure. For instance, if the
consumer is going to have 2 servings then the total calories of the food must
be multiplied by 2. The Calorie section contains both total calories and the
amount of Calories from Fat. This area requires simple division to determine
the percentage of from fat that the calories are coming from. The Nutrient
section is broken into two parts. The first part is the nutrients that should
be limited, such as Total Fat which has subdivisions of Saturated Fat and Trans
Fat. Also Cholesterol and Sodium are included in this section. The other part
is the nutrients that we should get enough of. This is where the Vitamins and
Fiber percentages are located. The Footnote section does not always need to be
included, if for example the label were to be too small. The Footnote area
contains the Daily Recommended Values for a 2000 calorie and 2500 calorie diet.
The last section is the Percent daily Values that are contained in the package.
These values are based on the Recommended Values from the Footnote section.
Food labels give a lot of information that is necessary
for making healthy choices of what we consume. They have changed drastically
over the last few years, and will continue to change as the battle between
industrial food and public health continues to wage on. It will be interesting
to see how nutrient labels will change over the next 10 years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)