Take It With A Grain of Sodium Chloride

I always find it ironic that, in a country with so much food readily available, there is surprisingly little of it that is healthy. I've been in countries where people who live there could never in their wildest dreams conceive of the bounty on display at an average American supermarket. Thing is though....most of it is processed way beyond it's original form. In that processing they add ingredients to preserve foods for a long shelf life and other ingredients to hide the flavor of the preservatives.

Take salt for instance.

My wife has high blood pressure and so is very cautious about her sodium intake. Seeing as she is the primary (and best) cook in the house, this means that I also eat low sodium meals. That's probably a good thing for me especially since I've come to realize just how salty most foods seem to be these days. You see, eating low sodium for a few years changes your sensitivity to sodium...to the point that many foods outside the home taste so salty as to almost make you gag.

I've also developed the habit of looking at sodium content for foods I buy, and salt is in everything. Anything that is in a package is loaded with gobs of salt. It's in high concentrations in pudding mix, for pete's sake. While there are loads of food items that tout themselves as low fat, low sodium doesn't appear to be much of a marketing gimmick for most processed foods...and those that do, suck in the taste department.

Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it forces me to eat very little processed foods and stick to fresh items.