The folks at WWLTV in New Orleans have sounded a clear clarion call to Heart Specialists in the area: Beware -- the season of the Louisiana Crawfish Boil is upon us Apparently, “pinching the tails and sucking the heads” of the crawfish “is a NOLA springtime ritual,” writes Meg Farris for WWLTV. But this sodium-laden delicacy is particularly risky for people with heart failure, she adds.
The seasoning for the crawfish boil is loaded with salt; salt, of course, causes the body to retain fluids; and retaining fluids is a not good for heart failure patients. But it’s not just the crawfish boils that contain too much sodium, Farris points out. Much of the prepared food consumed in the U.S. (and increasingly around the world) has sodium as one of the top ingredients on the packaging.
If you eat enough prepared food items, the abundance of salt catches up with you in the form of high blood pressure (although some will argue the connection between salt and high BP is tenuous at best) and its complications such as heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure. The salt lobby, of course, fights for its existence. A few years ago, in fact, it accused the federal government of bias and of breaking federal law by disregarding scientific literature in its recommendations that Americans consume less sodium.
Farris notes that cardiologists in NOLA are prepared for the increased visits by heart failure patients around the time of the crawfish boils. But cardiologists should brace themselves for this influx for a long time to come. The crawfish boil is so entrenched in the culture that it will be challenging to attempt to introduce a low-sodium version. Asking the boil chef to throw away the salt shaker is like asking a tree to give up its bark. Just ain't gonna happen.
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Posted By: Jen Fad
Wednesday, April 10th 2013 at 12:58PM
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