MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND ME: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS!

You may have read today that the latest "Hizzoner" of my old hometown has decided to take a stand against salt...

http://cbs5.com/health/bloomberg.war.on.2.920740.html

...and, after a bit of reflection, I've decided that I think he's on the right track with this. If US food manufacturers reduce the salt content of foods by fifty percent over a ten-year period, we will probably see healthier Americans by that time. Excess, hidden salt is in just about everything we eat, even in "sweet" foods like cake and candy. On the more obvious side of things, have you ever noticed the sodium content in your average can of soup? It's pretty scary how high that number can go.

I know that we are all responsible adults who can, and do, make good decisions for ourselves---and this is why the "nanny state" comment by one respondent to the above article sort of made me a little sad. Let's be honest: as consumers, we need all the help we can get. If someone in our government offers to assist us in acquiring and maintaining good health, why not gracefully accept the offer? Doing so doesn't seem "nanny state" to me (and it's not as if the good mayor is saying, "Hey! There's this stuff we've developed---we're calling it Soylent Green! You're gonna eat it!").

We're busy people. It's often easiest for us to purchase ready-to-serve items from the supermarket to help us save time in meal preparation, and these are the very items that are highest in sodium. Some of us would rather have the convenience than the health benefit, but we can have both. Bloomberg's proposal makes this clear.

Anyway, Hizzoner's idea got me thinking about the other "hidden" thing in foods: sugar. It's bloody EVERYWHERE. Because it is in everything we eat, and exists in great excess in prepared foods, our population is at great health risk for...you guessed it...diabetes. You can pick up just about any food in the supermarket, read the label, and find sugar in it. Here are some of its other names:

Beet sugar

Brown sugar

Cane sugar

Concentrated grape juice

Confectioner’s sugar

Corn sweeteners

Corn syrup

Cane juice

Demerara sugar

Dextrin

Dextrose

Fructose

Fruit juice concentrate

Galactose

Glucose

High-fructose corn syrup

Honey

Invert sugar

Lactose

Malt

Maltitol

Maltodextrin

Maltose

Mannitol

Maple cream

Maple sugar

Maple syrup

Molasses

Powdered sugar

Rapadura

Raw sugar

Sorbitol

Sorghum

Sucrose

Table sugar

Turbinado sugar

White sugar

Xylitol

Read labels, friends. Please. You don't need all this in your food! In any case, the less processed a food is, the better it is for you.

Another thing you can do to help minimize the amount of sugars you ingest is to eat foods that are lower on the glycemic index. For those of you who might not have heard this term, the glycemic index is a way to quantify the impact of carbohydrates on blood glucose levels. Certain foods that act as sugars (such as watermelon, grapes, potatoes, corn, white rice) are high-glycemic foods. Most other fruits and vegetables---as well as proteins, nuts, and whole grains---are low-glycemic foods. I love using barley as a substitute for rice; it is an excellent low-glycemic grain choice. Here is a link that's helped me learn more about the glycemic index:

http://www.glycemicindex.com

I hope you find this helpful, too.