There is new research to show that citrus and lemon in particular are good helpers for your simple healthy eating regimen. We are very lucky to have so many new studies that are showing us actual truth about safe and efficient ways to eat healthy. Lately, the scientists are broadcasting this information with no corporate or political support guiding the message. It is just science for health and health alone. Citrus and lemon are showing great promise, as they seem to assist very tempted taste buds to continue a healthy food choice option.
Salt and Citrus and Lemon
Today’s taste buds are looking for salts and sweets. We are not a vegetable society at this time, but this will evolve as we become more health conscious. We are all used to eating over the recommended limit of 1500mg of sodium each day, sometimes upwards into a limit of 4500 mg of sodium is easy to do! When you look at everything you eat, there is a lot of sodium in most our food and drinks. Even juice today has sodium! Here is a list of items that have sodium from labels:
- Hershey Special Dark Chocolate 0 mg(nice to have a happy bit of news!)
- Cottage Bread one slice 180 mg
- Orange Juice Trop 50 10 mg
- Diet Coke 30 mg
- Turkey Slice 110mg per slice
- Bag of 8oz potato chips 149 mg
- Bowl of Raisin Bran 1 cup 303 mg
- peanut butter 1tbsp 73 mg
- grape jelly 15 mg
- little caesars sausage pizza 520 mg
- yoplait yogurt strawberry banana 80 mg per container
- 1 cup of skim milk 127 mg
- bagel no cream cheese 470 mg
- cream cheese for bagel 1tbsp 43 mg
- hard boiled egg 139 mg
- bacon slice 160 mg
- chicken soup 1106 mg
- small single patty hamburger on bun 369 mg
- order of french fries 160 mg
These are just beginning thoughts to a usual American Diet, but if you consider drinks, coffee, teas and sodas, you will see how quickly you can get to the 1500 mg requirement of sodium intake. If more food companies used citrus and lemon to create the same taste as sodium, our health would improve in many ways!
Citrus and Lemon In Recent Studies
Taste testers approve of salted food and similar food with citrus and lemon sprinkled on top. Two different and very easy ways to eat the same bitter veggies, often made the veggies more appealing for flavor, but citrus and lemon is better for you. The reasons are salt and sodium are acceptable and needed, however, just in lower quantities. And, by the list that we have seen above, there is a lot of sodium in many things we didn’t consider before. So to be healthy, and to continue to eat nutritional foods like vegetables and fibers, salt is not the best option. Adding a sprinkle of citrus and lemon is the right choice, because all tasters said it was more flavorful, and tasted even better than adding salt. With the addition of citrus and lemon, you are receiving needed vitamin C, and a better way to keep your salt intake down. The sprinkle should be done right before you eat, and can be put on pretty much anything you like with salt. Even popcorn is a great way to get the salty taste, without all the extra mineral that is so often giving you the bad health consequences.
Why Citrus and Lemon is Better than Salt
With added drain on your heart, liver, and kidneys, salt adds a much needed mineral up to 1500 mg a day. Even that amount however, is very high in most countries, where the population sees a salt intake around 1000mg. Depending on your exercise level of the day, and your perspiration, you may need far less than you are getting. With a current American style meal plan, a day can consist of over 4500 to 5000 mg of sodium a day. Even coffee and tea bottled drinks have sodium. It has nothing needed to make the product taste good, but it adds a bit of a taste or tongue “remembrance” or taste memory to most western diets. The same can be said of citrus and lemon. The memory of the acid or mineral gain is equal or even more powerful in the taste receptors of the human brain. Not all animals enjoy salt, and cats do not have any sugar receptors in their tongue. They do have salt receptors, which shows that the protein diet and the addition of salt makes for a native or a strong taste memory for most predatory mammals. If the commercial food company system keeps using salt, there will be many large consequences on our health care system. There are brain studies that show the receptors and the brain transit the memory to the most ancestral parts of our brain. This means, we all see or taste the mineral the same.
With a simple way to drop sodium levels by 5% each year, and adding citrus and lemon to each needed meal, we can evolve to a better memory on our plates. Stop sending salt to your plate with a little citrus and lemon and see how your general health improves!
