Is it OK to snack on salted nuts for a high-fibre diet?

Question

I like to snack on nuts as part of ensuring a high-fibre diet, but I prefer the taste of salted nuts over non-salted. Will eating salted nuts cause me significant dehydration or other health issues? Is it likely to cause me to have too high a daily salt intake? Or is it basically OK?

Answer 1

Like most foods, salt should be consumed in moderation. Your body needs salt, but a good idea would be to try and cut down salt from some other parts of your diet. For example, get unsalted fries or no ketchup. Check the daily recommended value for an estimate of how much salt you're intaking. Furthermore (thanks to Carey Gregory for pointing this out), drinking water may NOT be the best idea to offset the sodium intake. According to dietitian Monica Reinagel(from LiveStrong link),

"drinking some extra water after a high-sodium meal may help flush some of the sodium from your body and may also help get rid of some retained water to reduce bloating...

Just drinking more water, however, is not a solution for a long-term high-sodium diet, says Reinagel. The increased blood volume that results from your body holding onto the excess water is what raises your blood pressure.

So depending on the rest of your diet, you could better judge for yourself whether salted nuts are ok, or maybe unsalted would be better.

If you happen to have a high-sodium diet and don't like the taste of unsalted nuts, it would be a good time to look into alternative sources of fiber.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/salt-and-your-health

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygroscopy

http://jap.physiology.org/content/65/1/332.short

http://www.livestrong.com/article/529042-does-drinking-water-flush-out-sodium-in-the-body/

Interesting Read if you want to know more about sodium removal from body-

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: Sweat rate and sodium loss during work in the heat