New York Times: "Stealth Salt in the Pantry"

Need another reason to start cooking a little more?

The amount of salt in packaged foods—including items you wouldn’t think high in sodium—is leading to “perhaps 100,000 premature deaths a year from sodium overload in the American diet” according to The New York Times, which was citing a government-commissioned report.

Here's the graphic (click on it to see detail) which accompanied yesterday’s Times article:
The graphic reminded me of a friend who used to eat Perdue Short Cuts chicken products for dinner almost nightly. He was sold on the product because of the package’s marketing claims and the fact it came fully cooked. However, he would wake up in the middle of the night completely parched and would have to drink several glasses of water to stabilize his system.

After we realized dinner was causing his dehydration, I taught him how to sauté a real chicken breast. The time differential between heating up the processed, salt-laden, chicken-like product and cooking an actual piece of chicken was about five minutes, a small price to pay for uninterrupted sleep and better health.

Remember, not all types of salt are bad. Click here to read more about the benefits of unrefined sea salt.