Dr. Michael Greger

It's because they want to make things taste good.

It's the cheap way to make things, you know, so you can't just eat one.

But the problem is, is that sodium increases risk, not just of high blood pressure.

but so many different leading killers like kidney disease and ice, you know, kind of on down the list.

Okay.

But so there's two ways we can go.

So there's lots of salt-free seasonings out there.

And, you know, and encourage people to explore all sorts of new, you know, and, you know, people often, you know, there's all sorts of spices that anyone would have heard of like saffron.

And I mean, there's also, so explore the whole world out there and find some delicious taste.

And then the easy fix is,

is switching to the salt substitute potassium salt.

Instead of sodium salt, sodium chloride, switch to potassium salt, which is potassium chloride.

It's just a natural mineral mined out of the ground just like the sodium chloride is.

And there are interventional studies.

I talked about one in the book where they took these five kitchens at a veteran retirement home and randomized their kitchens into either continuing to salt with regular salt in the kitchen or...

switching to a 50-50 blend of regular sodium chloride and potassium chloride.

And there was a 40% drop in cardiovascular disease death rates within a matter of years in the reduced sodium group.

In fact, their life expectancy at age 70 between the two groups was 14 years.

Come on.

Meaning that just by switching to half potassium salt, for which you wouldn't even be able to taste the difference, they effectively made themselves 10 years younger when it came to the risk of premature death.