It Is Amazing - Amazingly Unhealthy

I have not blogged for a while, for various reasons. I had a crazy busy schedule, and then I got sick with pneumonia which didn't get better. I had a small stroke, and was in hospital. For the last while I have been recovering. Looking back this has been good for me, at least God worked it that way. More than that, he was gracious in bringing healing, and renewed strength to me.

Now, as part of my recovery, I am working at dealing with high blood pressure. I am on 4 blood pressure medications among others. So far the pressure is down and staying down with meds and now with exercise and diet. However, that is lead me to start reading labels. Especially, in find the nutritional information from restaurants and prepared food interesting.

As I have done my research, I have found that restaurants pile on the salt. I mean you can't avoid all sodium but on restaurant in one dish had more that the daily allowance for sodium. That is one meal, meaning you shouldn't have an more that day. Some meals are a bit better, but for the most part they are surprisingly high. I even checked out some donuts, and although not as bad, among those I checked you are talking approximately 200 to 400 mg of sodium. I believe the recommended amount for a day is around 2400 mg. That means a few donuts, and you can have a quarter to half of that.

I don't know how sodium affects me. For some people it makes a big difference; for others not so much--I do know this, that much sodium cannot be good for anyone. I guess eating out will become much less common for me.

Having said all this there are some meals at restaurants that are not too bad, but unless they tell you on their menu the nutritional information (at least the important stuff like fats, saturated fats, carbs, protein and sodium) or make sheets available when asked, for those who are concerned about those things, or even those not so concerned, eating out is dangerous.