And the award for most dangerous meal goes to…

You’ve heard of the Emmys, the Oscars, the Grammys ….

But there’s one more not-so-prestigious award you may never have heard of — and knowing who these winners are could be a matter of your life and death…

Introducing the Milligrammys

On October 11, 2017, The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), gave the satirical award they’ve called the Milligrammys to several well-known fast food chains.

The achievement that earned this award? Beating the competition at just how many milligrams of sodium they could stuff into one fast food meal.

CSPI produced a series of tongue-in-cheek “award ceremony” videos that drive home the point: we’re eating way too much sodium, and it’s killing us.

The purpose of the Milligrammy awards is to call the public’s attention to the deadly amounts of sodium we’re consuming when we eat even “healthy” fast food meals.

For example: the award for Sodium Content in a Sandwich by a Chain Restaurant went to Subway, for its Footlong Spicy Italian with Provolone and Mayo. At 3,380 mg of sodium, it contains 1,080 more mg of sodium than you’re supposed to eat in an entire day!

P.F. Chang’s Pad Thai with Shrimp (5,250 mg. of sodium) won the award for Most Sodium in a Single Menu Item

And, the Lifetime Achievement Award was bestowed on Chili’s Restaurants. Chili’s earned this distinction with three notable menu items that contain 3,990, 6,240, and 6,260 mg. of sodium, respectively.

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CSPI’s 38-year fight for sodium safety

While these awards may be amusing, and while they make their point about sodium consumption, they highlight a more insidious problem.

For almost four decades, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has been calling on the FDA to establish limits for sodium intake. To date, not much has changed.

Since the 1970s, CSPI has been pressuring the FDA to change sodium’s status as a food that is Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS).

It took the FDA until 1994 to rule that food packaging must show sodium levels both in milligrams and as a percentage of daily value.

And, as recently as 2016, giant food conglomerates Nestle, Unilever, Pepsi, and Mars used their influence to support the FDA’s failure to act on citizen petitions to regulate sodium more strictly.

But the action of these corporate giants is just the tip of the iceberg.

Junk food: profits over public health

In 2013, one New York Times reporter published his findings about how food companies manipulate buyers to protect their profits.

In his book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Michael Moss drew on “a trove of internal documents that really open the door on their scheming, their plotting, their planning.”

The plotting involves careful research to determine what’s called the “bliss point,” the level at which salt and sugar make their products so tasty that we will keep on eating, grabbing that next chip even when we’re full.

By reaching these bliss points, manufacturers create products that are close to addictive. But when Kraft CEO Michael Mudd made the comparison to cigarettes, he was shot down immediately by his colleagues.

How to control your sodium intake

Sodium is sneaky. Sometimes you can taste it, but many times it’s in foods you’d least suspect.

The first step to taking control of your sodium intake is to read food labels meticulously, and make comparisons.

Obviously, snacks like chips and cheese puffs are full of salt. But many other foods are worth comparing for their sodium levels.

Here are some examples:

• A cup of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran has 350 mg. of sodium, as compared to 190 mg. for Cheerios or 85 mg. for Kashi Go Lean.
• A serving of Classico Caramelized Onion and Roasted Garlic tomato sauce has more than 20% of your healthy salt intake for a day. You can get just as much flavor from a different type of sauce, or even make your own!
• Two tablespoons of Heinz Ketchup have as much sodium as two ounces of potato chips.

Bread, processed cheese, vegetable juices and canned vegetables are other culprits. Fortunately, more and more of these products are available in lower sodium versions.

But a better option would be to start cooking more whole food meals at home. And if you need a little salty taste, use a little sea salt.

Ordinary table salt is approximately 97.5 percent sodium chloride and 2.5 percent chemicals. It is dried at more than 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. This heat greatly alters the chemical structure of natural salt. Sea salt has about 16 percent natural minerals and trace minerals like silicon, phosphorus and vanadium.

You could also experiment with spices and herbs as alternate ways to make food more flavorful too.

But whatever you do, don’t be fooled by so-called healthier versions of fast food. If you must go to a fast food restaurant, go for veggie pizza over pepperoni, grilled chicken over fried, and watch the cheese, pickles and ketchup.

Remember, you are your own best advocate when it comes to resisting the salty foods that could make you a sad statistic.