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By Jim Rix
It is obvious that for a business to stay in business for any length of time it must be profitable. This fact is true for the healthcare industry, which encompasses several entities: health insurance companies vying for your or your employer’s dollars; pharmaceutical companies anxious to push pills upon you; the meat and dairy industries promoting their unhealthy products; government agencies like the USDA setting health policies influenced by the above special interest groups; and last and least the medical doctor, also a puppet of all of the above, anxious to treat you ad infinitum to make a profit rather than to cure you with the truth. To obscure this truth, red herrings abound in the healthcare biz.
Take salt. Historically salt has been a good guy: Roman soldiers were paid with salt, a “salarium,” which is the derivation of “salary”; Greek slave traders often bartered salt for slaves, giving rise to the expression “someone was not worth his salt”; covenants in the Old and New Testaments were often sealed with salt—thus the origin of “salvation”; Jesus called his disciples “the salt of the earth”; “sitting above the salt” refers to the place of aristocracy above the common folk; and the French welcome “salut” is derived from the word salt.
But today salt has taken a bad rap. Promoted by special interest groups through their puppets the medical doctors, salt intake has become synonymous with high blood pressure, a risk factor for strokes, heart attacks, and kidney disease. While it is true that salt raises blood pressure, it does so ever so slightly. And it is this insignificant fact that obscures the real problem, which is the company salt keeps. Did you ever try to eat unsalted butter or unsalted cheese? Without salt these products are unpalatable globs of fat. And did you ever try to eat unsalted meats? Pretty gnarly! Per 100 calories there is 278 mg of salt in bacon, 830 in ham, 840 in cheese pizza, 187 in fried chicken, and 154 in cheddar cheese–compared with: 1 in a banana, 6 in rice, 8 in a potato….
So you see folks:
Copyright © 2014 by Jim Rix
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THANK YOU, JIM, for identifying this red herring: "Salt has taken a bad rap...has become synonymous with high blood pressure, a risk factor for strokes, heart attacks, and kidney disease. [But] salt raises blood pressure [only] ever so slightly...."
ReplyDeleteHow synonymous it is with the bad rap Christians in this world are getting....We are to be the salt of this world, and we are hearing that that is a bad thing and should be removed.....Selah..Pass the salt, please...without it, life is bland.
ReplyDelete