I often get back after a ride craving salted crisps …
I like to think its my bodies way of replenshing the salt thats been lost…
The only time I ever want crisps is when I’ve been out on a long hot ride or run, so I take it as my body saying I need the salt.
There was a fascinating (no, really) interview with Professor Graham MacGregor on R4 recently on the subject of salt and our “need” for it. I’ve heard the ‘salt is bad…’ message many times, and thought …meh/, but he is very knowledgeable and convincing:
“The food we eat is the greatest cause of death and illness worldwide. The main culprits – salt, sugar and fat – are now so embedded in our diet, in the form of processed foods, that most of us consume far too much.
Yet Professor Graham MacGregor doesn’t believe it’s up to us to reverse this situation. It’s up to the food industry, he says, who manufacture the processed foods, to take the ‘rubbish’ out.
Now Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine, Graham MacGregor has spent much of his career campaigning tirelessly to persuade the food industry to do just that – to reduce these demons in our diet – firstly salt, and now sugar.
And he’s had remarkable success. As a nation we now eat thirty thousand tonnes less salt each year than we did fifteen years ago, saving the NHS a staggering £1.5 billion per year.
Blood pressure lies at the heart of this huge saving and, as Graham explains to Jim al-Khalili, blood pressure is not a natural consequence of ageing. High blood pressure is simply a consequence of too much salt.“
I urge you to listen and make your own minds up:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08n2ltq
…but otherwise, I’ll just eat as much as I like of whatever I like after a long ride. The key is not to keep on doing it when the long ride is a distant memory 😉