Korean Job Discussion Forums

[shawner88]

My usual diet is something like this:

1.5 rolls of kimbap for breakfast and kimchi.

later I usually eat dwen jang or kimchi chigae with kimchi, of course

at night i eat more kimbap or mi yuk guk, or mandu and more kimchi


While it seems a healthy diet, that's got to be a lot of salt intake.


Do Koreans commonly have health problems related to a salty diet?

[Guest]

Just those with already compromised renal function, moderate lung disease, or thyroid diseases. Asians are not a salt-sensitive race when discussing hypertension. Only certain groups of Africans are actually salt-sensitive related to high blood pressure.

It of course in massive doses can cause the usual digestive disorders including diarrhea, but for the most part a healthy body balances things out just fine. Excluding of course the risk of more serious digestive disease.

The soju too helps to get the kidneys to do a bit of excretion I'm sure

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/72/1/200 has some interesting info, at least to me

[Jensen]

Too much salt is not good for you. Korean food is salty, but is it too salty? Probably. Liver problems seem to be a common Korean complaint, even among people who don't drink. I wonder what's up with all the stomach cancer though...where's that coming from?

[Ilsanman]

Definitely salt is not good for you. Many years ago, I stopped adding extra salt to food, as I realized that pretty much all food already has salt in it. Here, I really don't need to add salt.

Liver problems? Could be a combination of salt and alcohol. France has a low rate of heart disease and a high rate of cirrhosis of the liver.

[Son Deureo!]

[Ilsanman]

Then again, I have heard spicy food is healthy, as it kills germs and other stuff.

I also take that with a little skepticism.

[Cthulhu]