Healthy fight 101: Salt vs Sugar

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Do you think we can make healthy fights without mentioning the two most compared condiments in our daily life? No, that’s not, right?

So, you probably understood that, today, we will talk about this two condiments that we use so often: salt vs sugar. Who’s going to win? Take the bets!

We’ll don’t teach you anything by saying that most of us eat salt and sugar every day in a lot of food. Moreover, many people add some of these to have more taste in their meal. Some add salt to pasta, others sugar to strawberries for instance. Both are nowadays commons for us in our daily. But, are they healthy?

Are Salt and Sugar healthy?

First of all, we’ll answer this question and the answer seems obvious you might say.

And yes, you’re right, eating high quantities of both are inadvisable and it’s time to discover why!

Sugar

To compare salt and sugar, we’ll use 100 grams of each one to be more relevant.

So, in 100g of sugar contains 387 calories. We can find also 1 mg of sodium and 2 mg of potassium in it (which are minerals). It contains 100g of carbohydrate (including 100g of sugar, obviously).

Read –> What are vitamins and their properties

Salt

As sugar, we’ll take 100g of salt and describe what it contains.

So, 100g of sugar includes 38mg of sodium (which represent 1614% of the daily value!) and 8 mg of potassium. It contains also 2% of calcium and 1% of iron.

Read –> What are minerals and their properties

Ok but, which one is the best for my health?

It seems obvious, neither are healthy for the body when they’re eat in large quantities.

First of all, salt has several negatives consequences for the health. Indeed, it can cause an increase in blood pressure (especially in the arteries) which could lead to cardiovascular problems. Moreover, salt tends to make tissues swell by capturing water from our body and preventing it from being eliminated. This is called water retention.

Sugar, for his part, is more difficult. Indeed, it can be divided in 2 categories: complex sugars, which are essential for the organism, and simple sugars. The latter contains a lot of useless calories for the body which are stocked as fat.

Conclusion – who win the healthy fight?

So, salt vs sugar, which do you think wins? You can imagine, neither of them.

Indeed, it depends of which type of sugar but simple sugars (find in raw sugar, glucose or fruit juice concentrate) and salt in large quantities aren’t recommended by specialists due to bad effect for your body.

Keep in mind, however, that salt contains sodium which is essential for your body and complex sugars are the body’s fuel.

In anyway, these both can be found in the products that we consumed daily, so no need to add some to your meals to have what your body needs.

Bonus – How can you limit your consummation of sugar and salt?

For salt, if you can, try to salt your dishes less and less, in a very gradual way, so that your palate gets used to it. We recommend you replace it by some spices which contains good antioxidants for your body.

For sugar, we simply recommend that you’re running away from soda, fruit juices or alcohol and others sugar surplus products and choose unrefined sugar such as maple syrup or honey.

Read –> 10 things you probably don’t know about sugar

–> The best health benefits on stop eating sugar