You’re probably eating about three times the amount of sodium that’s good for you. But it’s not because you’re fiendishly salting your fries; it’s because of the addition of that insidious flavor enhancer sodium chloride to just about any food prepared outside your own kitchen. A recent study published by American health center the Mayo Clinic found that just 11 percent of sodium in a diet could be attributed to salt added while cooking or eating; a massive 77 percent came from eating regular food, unsalted, or so you’d think. “Salt is added to most processed foods, which includes just about anything that comes in a package,” says Hong Kong University food science professor Ma Ching-yong. “Its main function is as a flavor enhancer.” It also works as a texturizer by thickening soups, reducing dryness in pretzels and disguising aftertaste in soft drinks, making it indispensable to the food industry. But its effects when eaten in excess are quietly far-reaching, and very much bad for you. “Sodium is associated with hypertension, or high blood pressure,” says dietician Winsy Leung of Cambridge United Medical Specialist Centre. Hypertension is a risk factor for strokes and heart attacks, and according to a paper published by Chinese University researchers, its prevalance is rising in Hong Kong. For sodium to affect blood pressure, one must be sodium-sensitive but there’s no way to detect if you are. “Even if you don’t have high blood pressure, kidney or liver disease or edema - all conditions which are worsened by excessive sodium - consuming too much salt will exarcebate any underlying problems,” Leung says. Because hypertension usually exhibits no symptoms, excessive sodium intake can be a sneakier danger than excessive fat intake. “While the level of saturated fats shows up on blood tests, sodium levels don't,” Leung says. ”And say a person has undiagnosed hypertension and continues to eat a diet high in sodium - he may not show any symptoms; he may be otherwise healthy; but his blood pressure will continue to climb, to the point when a stroke may occur any second.” An ounce of prevention, in other words, is worth a pound of waiting for your brain to explode. A high-sodium diet is by no means the only cause of hypertension, but reducing your intake is one way to delay or prevent the onset of the condition. Sodium is used in the body as an electrolyte, and required for normal muscle and nerve function. But you don’t need a lot (500-1,000 mg according to the USA’s McKinley Health Center), and dietary guidelines put the recommended intake at 2,400 mg, or one teaspoon of table salt. Most of us have an intake around two or three times that at least, according to Leung. An unexpected source is meat tenderizers, composed largely of sodium bicarbonate. But the main source in our diets is common salt and monosodium glutamate (MSG), both used in high quantities in Chinese cuisine. In Hong Kong, the worst offenders are marinated meats like char siu and soya chicken, and preserved foods like lap cheung, salted fish and dried seafood. These foods all contain a proportion of sodium far in excess of recommended levels. Then there are the flavoring staples of soy, oyster and shrimp sauces. All are incredibly high in sodium – soy and oyster are not only naturally high-sodium sauces, but manufacturers often add salt to the final product for taste and preservation, Ma says. As for that quintessential Hong Kong meal, “dim sum contains really excessive amounts of salt,” Leung says. According to the paper ”Nutritional Analysis of Chinese Dim Sum in Hong Kong” published by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, one serving of sticky rice in lotus leaf contains about 1,200 mg, or half the daily recommendation. Same goes for steamed curry squid, while pan-fried rice rolls are half as unhealthy, containing 600 mg. A single yum cha session would push you right over the edge. Packaged food is equally suspect. According to Campbell’s website, one cup of their Select Chicken with Egg Noodle Soup contains 990 mg of sodium, or 41 percent of the recommended daily intake, leaving roughly 1,400 mg of sodium for everything else you eat. But that's not the worst offender: a single tablespoon of Lee Kum Kee premium soy sauce contains 1,200 mg ( www.thedailyplate.com ). Bottled foods such as pasta sauces are equally frightening - a cup of Paul Newman’s onion and roasted garlic tomato sauce contains 1,060 mg of sodium, or 44 percent of recommended intake ( www.newmansown.com ). A surprising natural source? Milk – one cup contains 110 mg, more than double that of a can of Coke (USDA). Eating processed foods contributes heavily to our over-salted diets, but to limit restaurant meals to twice a week, as Leung recommends, is unreasonable in food-centric Hong Kong. According to a Department of Health survey early this year, 93 percent of 2005 people aged 12 or over wanted healthier options when dining out. The response was August's Eat Smart @ Restaurant.HK program, where selected local chefs were taught to cook with less fat, sodium and sugar. A full program will launch at the end of the year for all local restaurants (sc.chp.gov.hk) For now, Leung recommends that diners request no MSG, or less soy sauce. She also suggests ordering dishes with natural seasonings – spring onion, ginger – and limiting dishes that contain preserved ingredients like lap cheung or salted fish. ”And never add table salt or soy sauce,” Leung adds. ”When food tastes salty, there’s already too much sodium in it.”
