Pepper, black to be precise

GT_TDI_150

guys,

I know that salt is a no-no in our diet, but what is the story with ground black pepper?

I've added no salt to my food for best part of 2yrs now, but I do use black pepper to spice/flavour my meat, salads, veg, ....

Is pepper alos not the best for us?

Ta

Frogdog

Hi OP,

You say salt is a no-no.......why? I presume it's because you've heard it said in popular culture and because it's all over the media as being bad for us? You might want to do your own research, a quick google showed up this:

http://content.healthnews.com/en/Categories/Diet-Weight-Loss/Health-Benefits-of-Salt-Restrictive-Diet-Refuted

As for pepper, I'm not sure but I'd hazard a guess at it being fine. It's a natural food afterall. I was able to find the below using google too :

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=74

I guess you should always do your own research to find out these things. Read a wide variety of articles, papers and studies and make up your mind then. Don't rely on the media, advertising and old wives' tales to tell you what to believe. This is the reason why people think eating a low-fat diet is healthy and beneficial for weight loss. :rolleyes::eek:

Best of luck on your journey of discovery!

EileenG

Pepper is fine. In fact, there is a suggestion that spicy foods like pepper may encourage your body to burn extra calories.

As for salt, I feel that as long as it's not mixed with sugar (as in most processed foods and cereals), salting to taste is not a problem. Your body does need salt, and if you exercise vigorously, it needs more salt than the RDA. Anyone who scrapes salt crystals off his face after a workout can salt without worrying.

I find it quite interesting that when I'm cycling a lot, I feel I need more salt on my food. When I'm not putting up the milage, some food suddenly tastes too salty to be pleasant.

Pepper is known to increase your absorption of some other (micro I think)nutrients. I think it's safe to say that as a rule of thumb spices (not spicy things, but spices themselves) are usually good for you. Very often they're useful for colds and digestion (well, my mum swears by spices and garlic for her colds and it seems to work!)

Salt, as EileenG said, isn't always a bad thing. Excessive use of salt has been linked to certain heart problems in the long term, but I don't know the ins and outs of that, and I suspect it's geared more towards people who basically eat salt with food on it rather than the other way round. However salt is an EXTREMELY important part of the diet. Once you keep your osmotic pressure constant you're fine. So if you're exercising, consuming extra water, sweating, not only can you afford to eat extra salt but you MUST eat extra salt. Contrary to what tv pieces would have us believe, there is such a thing as too much water. You need to balance water with salt, and vice versa.

EileenG

My personal gripe is salt and sugar mixed. It's addictive, and you can't taste either of them properly so you don't realise how much salt or sugar you are eating. Most breakfast cereals have a scary amount of salt, far more than you'd put on a boiled egg, but you're not even aware of that.

GT_TDI_150

EileenG wrote: »

My personal gripe is salt and sugar mixed. It's addictive, and you can't taste either of them properly so you don't realise how much salt or sugar you are eating. Most breakfast cereals have a scary amount of salt, far more than you'd put on a boiled egg, but you're not even aware of that.

this is why i dont add salt to my food anymore, most things we consume have lashing of salt in them already.

When you say cerial, i'm assume it's not all cerials? I tend to have cheerios in the am and (just checked the box) they have .5grm of salt in a 30grm portion.... or is that considered hig in salt?

EileenG

That's quite high. The GDA is 5 or 6g a day, depending on who you ask, and very few people actually eat only 30g of cereal, most people will eat at least double that, so you are getting around 20% of your recommended amount of salt in a meal that you don't realise has any salt.

El_Dangeroso

If you don't eat food out of a packet you can go quite liberally with the salt.

90% of Irish salt consumption comes from processed food. Bread being one of the worst offenders.

Don't go too low on the salt either, a recent very well designed (allbeit) study in JAMA showed that those eating the AHA guideline amount of salt had a much increased risk of heart disease than those that ate more.

Theres a U shaped curve with salt consumption. The sweet spot seems to be around 10g of salt a day. That's loads if you salt your own cooking but easily exceeded when eating crisps and takeaways.