As more and more people adopt the Paleo Diet, controversy has arisen as to which dietary elements actually comprise a contemporary “Paleo Diet”. Or more precisely, which current foods, food groups or food additives should be included or excluded in modern day diets as we try to emulate the nutritional characteristics of our pre-agricultural ancestors?
A number of popular-day and charismatic bloggers suggest that processed meats such as bacon and other cured, processed and smoked meats should be part of contemporary Paleo Diets on a daily basis (1-3).
Surprisingly, one of the contested elements that charismatic bloggers advocate (via their recommendation to eat processed meats and bacon) is salt (1-3). Look no further than Paleo Diet websites, blogs and cookbooks (1-3, 4-8) to find salt included in virtually all meal plans, menus and dietary recommendations given to the Paleo Diet community by so-called “experts” consisting of charismatic bloggers (1-3) and non-scientific authors (1-3, 4-8).
One of the primary sources of salt in the U.S. Diet comes from processed meats (9). I have previously spoken about the multitude of health problems associated with salt consumption. Please review my blogs showing the harmful effects of salt (10-16).
It is inconceivable how any rational person, much less leaders (1-3) in the Paleo Diet community could advocate the use of salt laden processed meats in contemporary Paleo Diets. High sodium diets are unequivocally recognized to promote high blood pressure, stroke and cardiovascular disease (9, 17-19). Further, more recent research shows that high salt diets increase the likelihood of autoimmune disease (20-23), immune dysfunction (24-29) and create a cellular environment that encourages cancer growth of all types (30-35).
Results
Listed below is a table of the salt content (both Na+ and K+ concentrations) of processed meats and their fresh unsalted counterparts. A potassium (K+) concentration greater than a Na+ (sodium) concentration of (>1.00) is healthful of which no processed meats exhibit, including bacon. Without being a nutritional scientist, you can see for yourself from the table below, that virtually all processed, cured and smoked meats represent a hazardous food which far exceed the human daily recommendation for sodium of 2300 mg (9, 17-19).
Cured Meats | Na+ mg/1000 kcal | K+ mg/1000 kcal | K+/Na+ |
Prosciutto Ham | 13821 | 2615 | 0.19 |
Ham, cured | 10313 | 2524 | 0.24 |
Smoked Beef Sliced | 10166 | 2387 | 0.23 |
Beef Lunch Meat | 9547 | 2632 | 0.28 |
Canadian Bacon, cured | 8975 | 2191 | 0.24 |
Smoked Ham Sliced | 8472 | 2086 | 0.25 |
Turkey Salami Cotto | 7072 | 1477 | 0.21 |
Smoked Turkey Sliced | 6850 | 2056 | 0.30 |
Turkey Salami | 6830 | 1469 | 0.22 |
Beef Cotto Salami | 6354 | 1006 | 0.16 |
Olive Loaf | 6315 | 1264 | 0.20 |
Pastrami | 6020 | 1429 | 0.24 |
Smoked Chicken Sliced | 5782 | 1552 | 0.27 |
Chicken Lunch Meat | 5554 | 920 | 0.17 |
Spam | 5403 | 2414 | 0.45 |
Headcheese, Pork | 5287 | 197 | 0.04 |
Salami Dry Sausage | 5221 | 982 | 0.19 |
Beerwurst Sausage | 5210 | 1063 | 0.20 |
Turkey Drumstick smoked | 4980 | 1400 | 0.28 |
Genoa Salami | 4706 | 861 | 0.18 |
Corned Beef | 4518 | 578 | 0.13 |
Turkey Wing smoked | 4507 | 1204 | 0.27 |
Beef Salami | 4368 | 711 | 0.16 |
Bacon | 4270 | 1044 | 0.24 |
Ham Lunch Meat | 4222 | 1298 | 0.31 |
Vienna Sausage | 4213 | 439 | 0.10 |
Mortadella | 4006 | 524 | 0.13 |
Hot Dog Wiener | 3759 | 524 | 0.14 |
Thuringer Sausage | 3591 | 718 | 0.20 |
Braunschweiger | 3547 | 609 | 0.17 |
Italian Sausage | 3509 | 884 | 0.25 |
Summer Sausage | 3481 | 484 | 0.14 |
Mettwurst Sausage | 3471 | 874 | 0.25 |
Pepperoni Sausage | 3346 | 565 | 0.17 |
Smokie links sausage Oscar Mayer | 3334 | 596 | 0.18 |
Scrapple, Pork | 3094 | 742 | 0.24 |
Knockwurst Sausage | 3029 | 648 | 0.21 |
Kielbasa Sausage | 2926 | 971 | 0.33 |
Chicken wings Barbequed | 2915 | 900 | 0.31 |
Bratwurst | 2855 | 953 | 0.33 |
Chorizo | 2714 | 875 | 0.32 |
Pork link sausage | 2694 | 1573 | 0.58 |
Liverwurst | 2638 | 521 | 0.20 |
Turkey link sausage | 2489 | 974 | 0.39 |
Bologna | 2391 | 1023 | 0.43 |
Salt Pork, cured | 1904 | 88 | 0.05 |
Blood sausage | 1794 | 100 | 0.06 |
Bockwurst Sausage | 1680 | 897 | 0.53 |
Pate de Foie Gras | 1509 | 299 | 0.20 |
Goose liver pate, smoked | 1509 | 299 | 0.20 |
Fresh, Unsalted Meats | Na+ mg/1000 kcal | K+ mg/1000 kcal | K+/Na+ |
Fresh, unsalted lamb loin | 272 | 1430 | 5.25 |
Fresh, unsalted Beef Sirloin | 324 | 1954 | 6.04 |
Fresh, unsalted Pork Sirloin | 275 | 1778 | 6.47 |