Today is

By: Ikedi Ani-okoye

Salt, Sugar, Fibre

Salt

Salt is important in our diet. lt helps control the fluid balance in our bodies and it is also needed to ensure that our muscles and nerves are working properly and to maintain normal blood pressure. As with sugar and fat, however, most of us tend to consume mere salt ban we need, Salt added to food during cooking and at the table makes up one-third of our daily intake.

The rest comes from foods like smoked haddock, kipper and bacon, canned and made-up products, bread and cereals. idthough it helps to keep an eye on the amount of obviously salty foods you eat, look at the labcis of manufactured foods as salt is often present in foods that do not taste salty.

The best way to reduce your salt intake - and, incidentally, your taste for salted food - is to cut down on the amount you use at home. This is important when preparing food for young children, as the salt habit tends to develop early. Never add salt to babies' food; their kidneys are not mature enough to deal faith it. Remove the salt pot H:om the table and try using alternative flavourings instead (see chart). Cutting down doesn't mean that your food need taste bland. On the contrary, if you experiment with different herbs and spices and other flavourings to take the place ofsalt, you'll find your food tastes better than ever.

Sugar

Most of us think of sugar as the white or brown varieties that Eve buy in the shops. But these are ordy part of a Whole family of sugars which includes syrups, honey, treacle, molasses, raw cane sugar, dextrose, glucose, fructose and maltese. Some of these sugars are also found naturally in
foods. Fruit juices and dried fruits, In particular, contain quite a large amount of fructose, but in general these sugars make up a relatively small proportion of she total sugars we eat. Although there are many types of sugar, no one sugar (except molasses) has any nutritional advantage over another. Apart from energy, none has nutrients ofany significance and they all contain about the same number ofcalories. So base your choice on taste, rather than the belief that one is any healthier than the other.

How to cut down on sugar

1 Identify the main sources of sugars in your diet. Plan to cut down on the first, especially if they are snacks.2 Cut down on the number of sweets and biscuits you eat. Try some fresh fruit instead.3 Watch your consumption of soft and F12zy drinks. If you choose fruit juice, dilute it with mineral water as it is naturally quite high in sugar.4 Stop adding sugar to tea and coffee or make a start by putting in less.5 Keep an eye on the contents ofbreakfast cereals.

Choose ones with little or no added sugar.6 Baby foods and drinks do not need sugar added, whether you buy or make them. Try not to encourage a sweet tooth.7 Blake use of the sweetness of dried fruit in your cooking - ia teabreads, cakes desserts.8 cooking, use fructose (available at chemists and large supermarkets) rather than sucrose. It has the same calorie value as sucrose, but is much sweeter, so you can halve the amount of sugar you use and cut down on calories at the same time.

Fibre

Fibre refers to the indigestible parts of vegetable products. It forms the cell walls of cereals, vegetables and plants. Another name for fibre - roughage - dates from a time when the best food was held to be that which was 100 per cent digestible. Since for a long time fibre was thought to be valueless, it was also considered to be ofno importance diet. More recently, it has been shown dlat fibre plays an important part in digestion in preventing chronic constipation.

It is also believed to prevent stomach complaints and even cancer of the colon. Fibre has two functions: it absorbs a lot of liquid and thus increases the contents of the stomach so that it is transported and excreted more quickly. lt also absorbs harmful and decaying substances which either form in the stomach or are ingested with food_ Best of all for the functioning of the stomach is fibre such as cereal, wholemeal products and oat flakes.

Some fibre, such as that from Plait and vegetables, can even lower the cholesterol level of the blood. Foods high in fibre also give a feeling of fulness even thOUgh they are often relatively low in calories. food industry has not been slow to latch on to the latest developments. Modern refined Hours contain very little fibre, i.e. bran, and the bran that has been removed is 501d back to us, attractively packaged, through health food shops at idgh prices.

And we always have to pay more for coarse-grounci or wholemeal flour than for white super-fuie flour with its low nutritional value. The chart on page 12 gives a list of high-fibre foods. Your diet should include at least 25-30 g/1 oz of fibre a day, about twice as vouch as most people currently eat. But sprinkling bran over everything is not the ansvver and can be bad for you. What you need to do is to make a few simple modifi cations to your diet and include a mixture of the foods listed on the chart. Here are some ideas to help.Increasing fibre intake

1 Choose wholemeal bread and try using wholemeal Rour more in your cooking. 2 Choose wholegrain breakfast cereals or bran or oats. 3 Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables eat the skins where possible (scrub them well first). 4 more pulses in your cooking, e.g. peas, beans, sweetcorn and lentils, as well as wholewheat pasta and rice. 5 more dried fruits in your recipes, and try adding them to your breakfast cereal.