Salt in the American Diet (Part 2)

  • Health professionals often work to reduce their patients salt intake to reduce high blood pressure. Should the government get involved too? (Photo by James Gathany for the US CDC)

New research shows that Americans’ health
would benefit dramatically if we ate less
salt. But some people say it’s not the
salt in the saltshaker that’s the
problem. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

New research shows that Americans health would benefit dramatically if we ate less salt. But some people say it’s not the salt in the saltshaker that’s the problem. Julie Grant reports:

Darryl Bosshardt comes from a salt family. His grandfather started mining salt on their farm in central Utah. When Bosshardt hears about a new study that shows 100-thousand American lives could be saved each year if everyone reduced their salt intake by just a half teaspoon – he cringes.
He says salt is being given a bad name.

“And the challenge is, how we define salt.”

Most of the salt today all looks the same – perfectly pour-able, uniform bright white grains. It’s pure sodium and chloride, but Bosshardt, whose family owns the Real Salt Company, says it’s not the same as naturally occurring sea salt.

“Sea water occurs with many trace minerals. Over 50 to 60 trace minerals. It doesn’t occur, the salt in sea water doesn’t occur, as pure sodium and chloride.”

Bosshardt says those trace minerals help the body to process sodium, but most salt today looks perfect because the trace minerals have been taken out. He says when our bodies lack the minerals needed to process sodium; it raises blood pressure, which can lead to heart problems.

There are some books by holistic doctors that make these kinds of claims,but there’s not much science to prove this.

Most doctors today say salt is salt; sodium chloride. Our bodies need it, but not as much as much as most Americans are eating.

Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s lead author of that new study on salt – the one that finds Americans could reduce deaths from heart disease by 100-thousand just by slightly reducing salt consumption:

“I don’t think we’re saying salt is bad and one of these other types of salt would be good. I think the newer types of salt that are on the market might have a lower sodium content for the taste that they have and so that would certainly be potentially beneficial.”

But Bibbins-Domingo says most Americans only get 6-percent of their sodium from their own saltshakers. The rest comes from processed foods and restaurants. So buying expensive sea salts with those trace minerals isn’t going to make much difference to most people. She says the problem is that salt is ubiquitous – people don’t even realize they’re eating it:

“If you start out with a healthy bowl of cereal with some milk, you’ve already consumed quite a bit of salt right there. If you have that healthy turkey sandwich or tuna sandwich, you have a bit of salt right there. If you have the marinara sauce with the pasta, you have salt there. So you realize that there are so many different ways, without you choosing items that we might clearly associate with a high sodium content, that there are a lot of places that we’re all consuming salt.”

Bibbins-Domingo supports efforts like the one in New York City. There Mayor Michael Bloomburg is urging food manufacturers to reduce the salt in their foods by 25% over the next five years.

Mark Kurlansky thinks it’s a terrible idea. He wrote a book called “Salt.” When laws curb smoking – that’s one thing. But salt is something different:

“You have to deal with the fact that people like salt. There isn’t the moral imperative of cigarettes because there isn’t a problem of second hand salt. If you don’t want to eat salt and the guy at the next table wants to eat it, it’s not going to affect you. It becomes an issue of government messing around with individual choice.”

But most people don’t realize they’re making that choice – there’s just so much salt in all the foods they buy. Other countries, such Finland and England, have worked with food manufacturers to lower salt content. In the UK, they cut sodium in foods by 10-percent. And researchers say the public didn’t even notice. They’re still studying to see if it’s actually improved health.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Salt in the American Diet (Part 1)

  • Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half. (Photo by Paul Goyette)

If you read nutrition labels on food packages, you might be surprised by how much sodium there is in a lot of foods.
Some researchers say all that salt is causing a plethora of health problems – and they want the government to force food manufacturers to lower the salt content. Julie Grant reports.

Transcript

If you read nutrition labels on food packages, you might be surprised by how much sodium there is in a lot of foods.
Some researchers say all that salt is causing a plethora of health problems – and they want the government to force food manufacturers to lower the salt content. Julie Grant reports.

When Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo sees patients with high blood pressure, she advises them to cut back the on the salt.

She says they often return to the office – happy to announce that they’ve cut out fast food and processed snacks.

“AND THEN I ASK THEM TO TELL ME WHAT THEY’RE EATING AND I AM AWAYS BLOWN AWAY WHEN THEY COME BACK WITH THESE NICE HEALTHY VEGETABLE SOUPS THAT ARE CHOCKED FULL OF SALT. AND SO ALL THE THINGS THAT THEY DON’T REALIZE ARE HIGH IN SALT ARE ACTUALLY STILL THERE IN THEIR DIET.”

Bibbins Domingo is associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s also lead author of a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers at Stanford and Columbia University Medical Centers co-authored the study.

They did a computer simulation – to see what would happen if every American reduced their salt intake by a half teaspoon a day. That’s 3 grams.

“WHAT WE FOUND THAT IS IF WE WERE ABLE TO REDUCE SALT IN THE U-S DIET BY 3 GRAMS PER DAY, WE WOULD ANTICIPATE 100-THOUSAND FEWER DEATHS EACH YEAR, 100-THOUSAND FEWER HEART ATTACKS, AND MORE THAN 100-THOUSAND FEWER CASES OF NEW HEART DISEASE.”

Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half.

But not everybody puts that much stock in the new study.

Michael Alderman is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He says the government shouldn’t act so quickly based on this new study:

“WELL, IT’S INTERESTING THAT IT’S CALLED A STUDY, WHICH I THINK SORT OF SUGGESTS THAT THERE ARE REAL OUTCOMES AND REAL PEOPLE THAT WERE STUDIED. IN FACT, OF COURSE, WHAT IT IS A SIMULATION, A MATHEMATICAL MODELING.”

Alderman says there are lots of different findings when it comes to sodium consumption. And some show reducing salt intake could have actually have negative health effects:

“WE KNOW THAT REDUCING SODIUM INTAKE, BY AN AMOUNT SUFFICIENT TO REDUCE BLOOD PRESSURE, ALSO INCREASES SYMPATHETIC NERVE ACTIVITY, IT INCREASES RESISTANCE TO INSULIN…”

If we already ate low salt diets, the researchers in this latest salt study say those concerns might be valid. But Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says salt consumption in the U.S. is higher than is recommended, and it’s on the rise.

But she says there are high levels of salt in so many foods, it’s hard to avoid. Cereal. Bread. Lunch meat. Pasta Sauce.

And she says consumers can’t really reduce salt consumption without some changes by food manufacturers.

“RIGHT NOW THERE ARE NO CHOICES THAT ARE REALLY AVAILABLE THAT MIGHT BE LOWER IN SALT. I THINK THAT’S WHERE THE EFFORTS WITH THE FOOD MANUFACTURERS ARE ABOUT REALLY MAKING A RANGE OF CHOICES SO WE CAN EAT LOWER SALT, WHICH IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE RIGHT NOW.”

Some governments are responding. New York City has already started urging food manufacturers and restaurant chains to lower the salt in their foods by 25-percent over the next five years. Bibbins-Domingo says California is considering salt limits in foods the state buys for schools, prisons and other public institutions.

She also wants the Food and Drug Administration to require food makers to alert consumers when foods are high in salt.

In the meantime, Bibbins-Domingo advises her patients to look at food labels – and really look at the sodium content – so they know what they’re getting.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Colleges Graded on Sustainability

A new report on sustainability is grading
the top 100 colleges and universities in the
country. Tracy Samilton reports the grades
reflect the institution’s environmental and
endowment practices:

Transcript

A new report on sustainability is grading
the top 100 colleges and universities in the
country. Tracy Samilton reports the grades
reflect the institution’s environmental and
endowment practices:


The top 100 colleges and universities in the country just got their
report cards grading them on sustainability. There are a few A’s, a
lot of B’s and C’s, and more D’s than you might really hope to see.


Mark Orlowski is head of Sustainable Endowments Institute. He says
colleges were graded in seven areas, including recycling and whether
the institution considers more than profit when managing its endowment
portfolio.


He says Dartmouth, for example, buys locally produced food, and
Stanford stands out for its endowment practices:


“We recognize Stanford for being the first school in the
country to adopt climate change shareholder voting guidelines.”


Orlowski says he hopes the annual report will encourage colleges to
make sustainability more of a priority.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links

Scientists Speak Out Against Bush Administration

  • A group called Scientists and Engineers for Change is touring battleground states, campaigning against the Bush Administration. (Photo by Emanuel Lobeck)

A group of prominent American scientists, including 10 Nobel prize-winners, will bring a campaign against the Bush Administration to key battleground states in the region. The group says the President has misused and marginalized scientific research. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

A group of prominent American scientists, including 10 Nobel prize-winners,
will bring a campaign against the Bush Administration to key battleground states
in the Great Lakes. The group says the President has misused and marginalized
scientific research. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


The political advocacy group formed last week is called Scientists and Engineers for
Change. Stanford University professor Douglas Osheroff is a member. He won the Nobel
Prize for physics in 1996. He says the Bush Administration is compromising scientific integrity.


“Having scientists reporting to middle-level bureaucrats who simply don’t have the background
to assess what the scientists are saying and he, of course, has essentially put a gag order
on scientists that are paid by the government directly. They are really not free to say what
they want.”


Osheroff also says President Bush and Vice President Cheney’s ties to the oil industry have
led them to minimize evidence of climate change.


Members of the Scientists and Engineers for Change will speak in Battleground states
like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania this month.


The group has no direct ties to Senator John Kerry’s campaign. The Bush campaign hasn’t
responded to the group’s claims.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Brewing Greener Beer

It takes a lot of water and a lot of grain to brew a good beer. And once that beer is made, there’s a lot of spent material and water left over. This excess is usually just considered waste. But two guys in the Great Lakes region decided to start a brewery that would focus on reducing pollution and waste and then re-using whatever was left over. They wanted to show how helping the earth could also help business. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports:

Transcript

It takes a lot of water and a lot of grain to brew a good beer. And once
that beer is made, there’s a lot of spent material and water left over. This
excess is usually just considered waste. But two guys in the Great Lakes
region decided to start a brewery that would focus on reducing pollution
and waste and then re-using whatever was left over. They wanted to
show how helping the earth could also help business. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports:


(ambient pub noise)


It’s a busy summer night at The Leopold Brother’s of Ann Arbor
Brewery. People have shown up to unwind after a long week. Some are
here to listen to the live band. Others to play a rowdy game of Pictionary
in the beer garden.


But mostly, people are here to drink the beer.


Brothers Scott and Todd Leopold own and run the brewery. A family resemblance is
obvious between the brothers.


But their roles in the business are totally different. Todd Leopold brews the beer. He’s a
big, friendly guy who seems at home in a comfortable-looking pair of old
overalls. Todd went to the Siebel brewing school in Chicago and got hands-on
training in four different German breweries. He uses techniques he learned over there in
his own facility.


His brother Scott Leopold is an environmental engineer, educated at
Northwestern and Stanford. Scott spent years helping big companies
save money by using environmentally sustainable business techniques.


But four years ago he decided to put his money where his mouth was.
One night, at a bar in Colorado, the two brothers came up with the idea
to combine their talents and start the world’s first zero-pollution brewery.


They wanted to build the model, then show people that it could really work.
Their idea was met with some skepticism by family and friends. Simply put, they
thought Scott and Todd were nuts. And Scott says they weren’t all wrong.


“Most of the entrepreneurs who are out there will tell you if they knew what they were
getting into before they got into it…they probably wouldn’t have done
it. We might not be alone in that.”


But so far the idealistic business venture has proved to be a success. Scott and
Todd have reduced the volume of a typical brewery’s waste by 90 percent.


To accomplish this, Scott and Todd designed a brewery where every detail was taken into
account to conserve resources.


“What we wanted to do was put science ahead of marketing…to ensure that anyone could
look within our production processes to ensure that it would stand up to the rigors of
science within the environmental engineering world.”


(ambient sound of brewery)


In the brewhouse, stainless steel machines gleam like they’ve just been washed. They’re
not brewing today… that only happens about once a week. But the factory computer is on
and its small, colorful graphics are showing everything that’s happening in the facility.


The computer helps cut down on the brewery’s waste by tracking and regulating all
energy and water use. So there’s always an accurate record of what was
produced versus how much of the raw materials and energy was consumed.


Todd Leopold says this helps him brew better beer.


“When you know everything that’s going in and everything that’s going out, if suddenly
that changes or there’s a spike you know there’s a problem and you’re able to track it
down. So it’s really helped me run a much tighter ship.”


All the other devices in the brewhouse are specially tailored to reduce waste. In fact,
they’re so efficient that Leopold Brothers generates 25 percent less solid waste residue
and buys 25 percent less grain than most small breweries.


That means they’re saving money.


Scott Leopold says their profit margins are nearly a quarter higher than they would have
been if they hadn’t made the investment in better equipment early on. But even with all
the complex equipment, there’s still some spent grain and water left over.


It’s all put to good use. The used organic malt and hops make great food for
animals at organic farms. Excess water from the brewing process is used in the
greenhouse in the back.


Pots of basil for the menu and moonflowers for the beer garden grow in there.
Conservation even extends beyond the brewhouse to the brewery’s decor.


Fat vinyl green tubes with zippers up the sides snake across the ceiling. They’re part of a
more energy-efficient heating and cooling system. And old doors hammered together
make up the bar.


The Leopold Brothers pay the same attention to detail when it comes to marketing their
product. The labels are made from vegetable-based inks. And they use recyclable
cardboard boxes as packaging.


But the brothers want to have an impact on brewing beyond just their own facility.


Todd says they have to start off small.


“We’d love to see the larger, world class…well, not world class, but world size breweries
that distribute their beer internationally to adopt some of the things that we do. It’s just
very difficult to infiltrate the corporate culture as opposed to where there’s one or
two owners. You sit down with them, have a beer, and say this is how you need to do
things. It’s much easier to have an impact on that level, I believe.”


Scott and Todd Leopold say the big breweries have adopted some conservation
techniques simply to save money…but they still generate a lot of waste water.


Scott thinks they could reduce the amount by introducing new machinery and changing
their cleaning techniques.


But U.S. Environmental Protection Agency environmental scientist Erik Hardin says the
big breweries will have to be shown that trying more new things will help the bottom
line.


“With most any big business, pollution prevention steps seem to be incorporated after the
people in charge have been convinced thoroughly that these things can actually save them
money.”


And the Leopold Brothers say that is the exact mission of their brewery …to show, by
example, that sustainability means profitability.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Annie
MacDowell.

Related Links

Wind Power Cheaper Than Gas and Coal?

A new study suggests wind power is cheaper to produce than coal or natural gas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

A new study suggests wind power is cheaper to produce than coal or natural gas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports.


The report from Stanford University shows creating electricity using wind power costs about three and a half cents per kilowatt-hour. That compares to coal and natural gas costs of almost four cents per kilowatt-hour. Mark Jacobson is an engineering professor at Stanford, and the author of the study. He says the government needs to pursue using more wind power over coal and natural gas.


“ …and also, wind energy is more efficient than solar, or other renewable energy sources. So all of the renewable energy sources, you would want to exploit wind first.”


Jacobson says wind power is even a better deal when the environmental costs of pollutants from coal and gas plants are taken into consideration. But there is a downside. To convert two thirds of the nation’s coal generated electricity to wind power would take an up front investment of more then 330-billion dollars. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.