Dr. Christopher Labos

People will say, you know, pork, it's the other white meat.

This idea of pork being white meat is actually a marketing slogan.

It has nothing to do with science.

Have you ever heard of the expression breakfast is the most important meal of the day?

That's a marketing slogan.

It actually has no basis in science whatsoever.

When we talk about salt, what we're actually talking about is sodium chloride.

And you are right, it is the sodium that is problematic.

Our kidneys have a very, very specific mechanism, which is they hold on to all the sodium that we eat.

And the more sodium that your kidneys hold on to, the higher your blood pressure gets, the more water you hold on to.

So people who

have issues with retaining water, with leg swelling, one of the things we tell them medically is cut salt out of your diet, cut sodium out of your diet as much as possible.

And so when you're young and healthy, you might be able to get away with it because when you're young, your body can metabolize cardboard and nothing you do is really gonna have an effect on you.

But as we start to get older, we also tend to become more and more salt sensitive.

And so particularly older individuals,

The more salt they eat in their diet, the more their blood pressure tends to go up, the more they retain water, and the more they start to get into cardiovascular problems as a result of it.

The greatest contribution of sodium to our diet, especially here in North America,

is the salt that comes from restaurants so if you're eating out if somebody else is making your food for you if you are ordering it from another location that food is very high in salt very high in fat and generally speaking a lot on more unhealthy than the food that you are going to make for yourself at home

Somebody who eats at home and cooks for themselves is going to invariably be healthier than somebody who goes out and eats at restaurants because you are going to look out for yourself.

Whereas the person making you the food just wants the food to taste good.