前言：
微信和朋友圈中瘋傳著這個消息：「轉腎科同事的微信，這個很重要，尤其對腎功能不全的患者！急診的高鉀血症越來越多，追問病史，許多人都是用的低鈉鹽，因為低鈉鹽（我能說我自以為低鈉比較健康嘛~）比普通鹽貴，認為貴的就是好的。我們腎臟科醫生，天天講，就買最便宜的雪花鹽，不能買低鈉鹽，低鈉鹽就是高鉀鹽，是送命鹽，恐怕一般的醫生也不知道，或者也沒有注意，只有腎臟科醫生特別重視。我是覺得這個要轉的！確實息息相關。」
被這條消息刷屏了？
進了超市後在食鹽櫃檯恐慌了麼？
覺得國內的一切食物政策都是害人的，
美國的月亮大又圓了麼？
低鉀鹽到底能不能吃？
美國人是個什麼態度？
第一手翻譯資料，
請細細看，相信自己的判斷吧。
2016年8月4日
Hans Lienesch, also known as the RamenRater, made a career out of reviewing instant noodles, starting in 2002. The41-year-old used to eat two packs a day, every day — but afterwards, he gotsweaty, stressed out, and felt his heart rate go up. His doctor told him he wasclose to having high blood pressure, so, after a thousand reviews, he decidedto cut back to just one pack of instant noodles a day.
Hans Lienesch，著名的速食麵評價人，自2002年開始速食麵評價生涯。41歲的他一般每天吃兩包速食麵——近來，他自覺多汗，血壓上升，心率加快。醫生告訴他高血壓病離他不遠，思慮再三後，他決定，每天只吃一包速食麵。
As a professional consumer of salt and seasoning, he had tried alow-sodium instant noodle before: It was so bland, he put it on his bottom 10 listfor the year. Recently, a salt company invited Lienesch to doblind taste tests for a potassium chloride salt that'smeant to replace sodium chloride as salt. He tried chicken strips, pizza andpepperoni — one version made with regular salt, and another version made withthe potassium chloride replacement.
Aside from a slight millisecond delayfor the flavors to sink in, the food made with the salt substitute tastedvirtually identical to that made with regular salt, Lienesch says.
作為鹽等調味品的職業消費者，他曾經嘗試過低鈉速食麵：然而它們是如此寡淡無味，於是他把低鈉速食麵放在了年度榜單十差行列。最近，一個鹽業公司邀請Lienesch參與一項盲測，用氯化鉀鹽代替氯化鈉鹽。他分別嘗試了雞塊、披薩和義大利辣味香腸——一列用普通鹽，另一列用氯化鉀鹽替代。除了在味道浸潤上略有差池，兩種鹽做出來的風味幾無二致。
"Not only is it knocking out awhole bunch of sodium and replacing it with potassium ... it's making the foodmore savory," he says. "That just sold me right there."
「不僅僅是完全用鉀代替鈉...它還讓食物變得更有味」他說，「立刻徵服了我。」
Lienesch says he recommended thepotassium chloride salt to all the instant noodle companies he is in contactwith. Most Americans get too little potassium as well, so he wondered, whyisn't everyone using this?
Lienesch說他給所有相關的速食麵公司都推薦了鉀鹽。大多數美國人鉀攝入不足，他很好奇，為什麼不是每一個人都接受鉀鹽？
Reducing sodium, in fact, is somethingthat instant noodle manufacturers have been unable to accomplish. That'sbecause even though low-sodium noodles are better for our health, they don'ttaste as good — and consumers can tell, says Norio Sakurai, deputy chiefexecutive of the World Instant Noodles Association.
世界速食麵協會執行副主席NorioSakurai認為，限鈉，真不是靠速食麵製造商一己之力能夠完成的。儘管低鈉鹽有益健康，口感上的欠缺仍然導致味蕾靈敏的消費者棄選。
Reducing sodium in food has become a priority for the rest of the foodindustry, too. This June, the Food and Drug Administration released a draftof sodium-reduction targets for dozens of foods, aiming toreduce Americans' average salt consumption over the next decade from 3,400 mg aday to 2,300 mg a day.
減少食品中的鈉含量已成為食品工業優先考慮的問題。今年六月，美國食品和藥物管理局發布了一項針對幾十種食品的限鈉指標草案，旨在將下一個十年美國人的平均鹽攝入量從每天的3400毫克減少到每天2300毫克。
Cargill, one of the largest beef processors in North America and supplier of beef for McDonald's, already offers potassium chloride salt products.Researchers at Unilever (which owns brands like Hellmann's, Knorr and Ben andJerry's) published a journal article this April concluding that potassiumchloride is a "valuable, safe replacer" for sodium chloride (aka,table salt), and they expect more food products to do so.
Cargill，北美最大的牛肉加工商，麥當勞牛肉供貨方，已經開始提供鉀鹽產品。聯合利華的研究團隊（旗下擁有Hellmann's, Knorr and Ben and Jerry's等品牌）4 月份發布的文章指出，氯化鉀是一個「有價值的，安全的」氯化鈉替代品，他們希望有更多的食品採用鉀鹽。
Janice Johnson, a food scientist at Cargill, says food manufacturers havebeen asking them about how to lower sodium. She says it's been a challengebecause salt does many things, like enhance flavor, make meat succulent andpreserve food.
Cargill的食品科學家Janice Johnson表示，食品製造商已經詢問他們如何低鈉。她說這是一個挑戰，因為鹽在提高風味、使肉鮮嫩多汁及保存食物上至關重要。
"It does these many things that nosingle ingredient can do completely. The next closest is potassiumchloride," Johnson says.
Johnson指出「食鹽的這許多作用並不是某一種單獨成份就能完成的，最接近的就是鉀鹽了。」
She says the meat industry has been mostinterested in using potassium chloride, because it currently uses sodiumchloride for preserving meat and keeping it tender and juicy, and potassiumchloride does that well, too. Johnson says potassium chloride is already usedin some consumer products like processed meat. She says she took a look at newconsumer food products recently and saw well over a thousand using potassiumchloride.
她說，肉類行業熱衷使用氯化鉀，以前用氯化鈉來保存肉類使肉類柔嫩多汁，氯化鉀也完全做得到。詹森說，鉀鹽已經在一些消費類產品中使用，如加工肉類。她說，最近她看了一眼新的消費食品，超過一千種食品使用了鉀鹽。
It's a little harder for something likesoup, which relies on salt for flavor. One problem with potassium chloride is aslightly bitter taste.
可能在湯類應用上有些微困境，湯靠鹽調味，而鉀鹽會有輕微苦澀口感。
There could certainly be health benefitsto eating less sodium and more potassium.
低鈉高鉀飲食對健康肯定大有裨益。
Cheryl Anderson is an associate professor of family medicineand public health at the University of California San Diego School of Medicineand a member of the Department of Health and Human Services' 2015 DietaryGuidelines Committee. She points to an influential 2006 study ofmore than 1,900 elderly men in a Taiwanese veteran's retirement home: It foundthat eating potassium-enriched salt made the men more likely to survivecardiovascular disease, and they racked up lower medical bills. A 2013 review ofrandomized trials and studies found that eating more potassium reduces bloodpressure in people with hypertension and lowers the risk of stroke.
Cheryl Anderson是加利福尼亞大學聖地牙哥分校醫學院的家庭醫學和公共衛生學副教授，又是美國衛生和人類服務部2015膳食指南委員會成員，她指出，2006年他們完成了一個有影響力的研究，研究了超過1900名臺灣老兵的退休生活：常吃富鉀鹽的人降低了心血管病發病風險，在醫藥上的支出會減少。2013年的隨機試驗和研究回顧發現，常吃鉀鹽可降低血壓，減少卒中風險。
However, extra potassium isn't good foreveryone — Andersoncautions it can be dangerous for people with chronic kidney disease. She saysthe best strategy for sodium reduction is to "gradually and in shortorder, reduce the amount of sodium in the food supply, as opposed tosubstituting the amount of sodium in the food supply." Using a substitutelike potassium chloride means Americans will continue to develop a taste forsalty food, she argues.
然而，高鉀並非人人適宜——Anderson警告，對於慢性腎臟病人，高鉀是危險的。她說，限鈉的最佳策略是「漸進地減少食品中的鈉含量，而不是替代食品中的鈉含量。」她擔憂使用替代品如氯化鉀意味著美國人將縱容延續一貫的重口味。
Despite how much salt many Americans eat every day, Gary Beauchamp,emeritus director and president of the Monell Chemical Senses Center,says we can gradually get used to having less salt. Research heconducted in the 1980s found as much, and the findings havebeen replicated many times, he says.
無論美國人每天究竟吃多少鹽，Monell化學感官中心主席、名譽董事Gary Beauchamp說，我們可以逐漸適應低鹽。他說，他於20世紀80年代進行的研究，一直被不斷重複與複製。
"When people are forced to go onlow-sodium diets experimentally, initially they found this diet veryunpleasant," Beauchamp says. "But after several months, they adaptedto it. Then, when given salt levels in food that they used to think were justperfect, they found it too salty."
「最初被強制低鹽體驗時，人們會覺得低鹽餐不好吃，」Beauchamp說，「但幾個月後，他們就會適應。然後，再給他們曾經完全認可的正常鹽量食物，他們會覺得，咦，太鹹了。」
Chris Loss,director of research and development at the Culinary Institute of America, agreesthat we can unlearn our taste for salt. He says using potassium chloride as apartial substitute is one tool we have, but there's a lot more we can do withcooking techniques, ingredients and psychology.
"There are no flavor molecules infood," he says. "Flavor is in your head, flavor is aperception."
Chris Loss，美國烹飪學院的研究與發展部主任，認為我們可以忘卻鹽之口味。他說，使用鉀鹽替代是一種途徑，可以開發的領域更多，比如烹飪技術，食物成分和受者心理。「並沒有什麼食物美味分子」，他說「美味是在你的腦海裡，美味是一種感覺。」
For instance, he says his research showsthat if you sprinkle a little salt on top of some mashed potatoes, the firstthing you taste is salt. Then the rest of the mashed potatoes will seem verysalty, even if there's actually less salt overall. He says that's what chefsexploit when they finish a dish with salt.
比如，他說，他的研究表明，如果你在土豆泥上撒一點鹽，你第一品嘗到的就是鹹，剩下的土豆泥會看起來很鹹，即使實際上只有很少的鹽。他說，這是廚師在完成一道菜的時候常常使用的伎倆。
Loss says the other question is what wewant: something that's identical in flavor to the salty food we like, just withless sodium? Or something that's just as tasty, even if the flavor is a littledifferent?
Loss說，另一個問題是我們想要的是什麼：同樣味道的食物，我們就喜歡那低鹽的？或者說，口感即是硬道理，哪怕味道略有不同？
Several years ago, Loss did a study with a Chinese chef in which they made someregular French fries, and some other fries with 33 percent less salt, butseasoned with Sichuanpeppercorns and chili peppers. The 17 culinary students in the study could tellthe other fries were less salty, but liked them just as much anyway, sayingthey were "savory" and had "more depth."
幾年前，Loss研究了中國廚師做常規炸薯條的情況，用四川花椒和辣椒調味，可以減少33%的鹽。這項研究中，17個烹飪學徒可以辨識出那些低鹽的薯條，但一樣很喜歡吃，認為它們「味香」「醇濃」。
He says he is encouraged by efforts toreduce sodium. He says if previous quests to remove fat and carbohydrates fromfood have taught us anything, it's that we can't just focus on taking out onevilified ingredient.
他說限鈉的成效鼓勵了自己。如果以前的努力比如從食物中去除脂肪和碳水化合物已經教會了我們什麼，那就是我們不能只關注於去除爭議成份。
"Everyone wants that saltsubstitute, but it's never that simple," Loss says. "It's never aone-for-one substitute."
「每個人都想找到鹽的替代品，但它從來沒有那麼簡單，」Loss說「從來沒有一對一的替代物。」
僅供學習交流，歡迎探討
相關連結：
美國人為什麼鉀攝入普遍不足？這個問題的答案，自己參考下文
低鈉高鉀多維C，慢性病兒遠離您
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