Good News For, Like, Everyone. You Can Eat as Much Salt as You Want.

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine was house-sitting for a couple in Park Slope who had a pool. So I picked up some avocados, garlic, lime, shallot, cilantro, jalapeno and red onion to make some guac.

In these rich people’s kitchen were three different kinds of salt. Pink Himalayan Mountain Salt, Celtic Sea Salt and regular kosher. I love salt. Love it so much. I will eat pinches of it throughout the day.

So, seeing all that awesome, I added all three of those goddamn salts to my guac. And it was fucking delicious (helped that the avocados were ripe).

Was it unhealthy? People might say yes. Current guidelines recommend just 1,500-2,300 milligrams of salt a day. Less than a teaspoon. But a new study says fuck that noise.

An international study of more than 100,000 people published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that while there is a relationship between salt intake and high blood pressure, if you don’t already have high blood pressure and you’re not over 60 or eating way too much salt, salt won’t have much impact on your blood pressure.

In fact, people who consumed 3,000 to 6,000 milligrams per day had a lower risk of death and cardiovascular events than those who had more than 6,000 mg or less than 3,000 mg.

Yeeeaah. Says Dr. Suzanne Oparil, a cardiologist in England who worked on the study: “A diet that reduces sugary drinks and approaches the Mediterranean diet will give you more benefit rather than regulating the salt aspect of the diet.”

I don’t drink soda and love olives, so perfect. Of course, there are naysayers. From NBC:

Dr. Elliot Antman, president of the American Heart Association, noted that the studies are observational and so can’t show cause and effect or rule out other factors that would affect the findings, like if people with poor health had already reduced their salt intake to less than 3,000 milligrams. They also are concerned about how sodium was measured — through a urine sample.

Haha screw that. Pour on the deliciousnesss. Pour it on. And when it doubt, pour on some more. You’re going to die anyway. Die tasty.

[Image via Shutterstock]