Five Things: Salt. Sleep. Books. And more.

Editor’s note: Hi there! Welcome to Truth Be Told, the weekly newsletter published by The Whole Truth Foods. This is Samarth Bansal, your Editor. Today, I am writing our curated edition where we share five insightful links on health, food and fitness from outside the TBT universe. Happy reading!

1) Your sleep problems may not be a lifestyle issue but a medical one

If you are having trouble sleeping, the first thing you’d probably think about is changing your lifestyle: avoid caffeine, stay away from screens, go to bed on schedule, or maybe pop in some sleeping pills. Because the thinking goes, the problem is fixable with better habits: you are the problem.

Shivam Vij’s piece in The Print—which I read last year, and re-read recently—was an absolute eye-opener. Because he thought so too, until he took a sleep test, and discovered his problem wasn’t about his lifestyle. It was medical.

He had problems like feeling extremely thirsty at night, frequent urges to urinate, morning headaches, and daytime fatigue. A ‘sleep test’ revealed he had Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), a condition where a person’s breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep.

If you have OSA, your throat closes up and blocks your airway. So you have difficulty breathing. Now take it to the extreme—that you are not able to breathe at all—to imagine why this is a big problem: our body, to save us, keeps waking just enough to reopen the airway and start breathing again. This can happen many times an hour, even if you don’t fully wake up each time. Which means a poor quality of sleep.

In short, as Shivam describes in his piece, this is a mechanical problem—not a lifestyle problem. And so, the ‘solving’ requires medical treatment via a doctor—not bullet-point advice on staying healthy.

He was told to use a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine, or CPAP, which delivers a steady stream of air through a mask that you wear over your nose and/or mouth while you sleep. This air pressure keeps your airway open and ensures you don’t have the interruptions in your breathing that sleep apnea causes—which hits the root cause of the problem.

To be honest, had I read about this on a health news website, I’d not have cared much—because just the idea of sleeping with a machine like CPAP feels so off-putting. But Shivam’s powerful personal narrative on his struggles with sleep apnea and how CPAP changed his life made me care about it.

In his words: “It felt like I had landed in a new country. For the first time in almost 20 years, I actually slept.”

Do read and share this with people who describe similar symptoms. Maybe what they really need right now is a sleep test and a diagnosis.

Here’s the link to read.

2) Are you eating too much salt?

 

Salt is one of those ingredients that we absolutely need in our food but how much of it is too much—and how does one even know if they are taking in too much—is not as obvious. It’s generally always tricky to know the limits and how it affects our health.

This article in the New York Times walks us through this debate.

1. When we talk about “too much salt,” we’re really talking about too much sodium. And it’s a concern because it raises the risk of high blood pressure — the leading cause of heart attacks and heart failure.

2. Recommended limits vary: U.S. dietary guidelines say max 2300 mg/day, WHO says 2000 mg/day. And for those who already have high blood pressure, American Heart Association suggests max 1500 mg/day.

3. Reality check: This report by the George Institute for Global Health reports that the average salt intake of Indians is more than double the WHO recommendation.

So yes, reasons to try cutting down. But how?

Here are two practical strategies the article suggests which stood out to me:

1) Use the Sodium-Calorie Match Rule when buying packaged foods: Choose products where the sodium in milligrams is less than or equal to the calories per serving. For example, if a snack has 200 calories, aim for 200 milligrams of sodium or less.

This rule works because most adults need about 2000 to 2500 calories daily, which aligns with the recommended sodium limit of 2000 to 2300 milligrams. Following this rule for everything you eat helps you stay within the recommended sodium intake.

2) Use flavour boosters beyond salt: Experiment with herbs, spices, and other ingredients to add flavour instead of relying solely on salt. Ingredients like spicy seasonings, lemon juice, and vinegar can enhance our perception of saltiness. This means you can use less salt while still enjoying flavorful food.

For instance, try adding a dash of lemon juice to your salad or sprinkling chilli flakes on your eggs. These additions can make a small amount of salt taste more potent, allowing you to reduce overall sodium intake while maintaining satisfying flavours.

Also, in the comments section, I found this very resonant:

“If you start reducing how much sodium you consume, you start to be satisfied by less. After cutting back on sodium for years, now when I eat certain frozen pizzas or processed foods, it feels like a punch of salt! Think of it less as missing out on salt, and more of resetting your salt satisfaction level to a lower setting.”

I can vouch for this. I’ve noticed a change in my own salt sensitivity at home. The same dal my mother prepares now tastes saltier to me than to other family members, even though I didn’t perceive it this way a few years ago—which suggests how our palates can adapt to lower sodium levels over time, making us more sensitive to salt in foods we previously found normal or even under-seasoned.

Here’s the link to read.

3) A scientific guide to health books

Red Pen Reviews is an independent, non-profit organisation providing in-depth, evidence-based reviews of popular nutrition and health books.

They assess books on three key criteria: scientific accuracy, reference accuracy, and healthfulness of recommendations. Each book, reviewed by qualified experts, receives a score out of 100, making comparisons straightforward.

I am so glad I found this site. Because this level of depth and expertise is rare in the world of book reviews, especially for nutrition literature. While other platforms might focus on readability or popularity, Red Pen Reviews prioritises scientific integrity, offering readers a unique and valuable perspective on the credibility of nutrition claims.

What sets them apart is their meticulous evaluation process and full transparency. They detail the reasons behind each score and cite relevant scientific literature, allowing readers to understand the basis of their assessments.

I strongly recommend checking out their site to see if any books you’ve read are reviewed there. Also, by sorting the reviews by score, you can find the most scientifically validated books — a great way to inform your next read.

 

4) When diet culture sneaks up on you

Long-time readers know how much the whole ‘diet culture’ speaks riles me up—the pervasive belief that certain body types are better than others. It’s the stuff that makes us feel guilty for eating a cookie and judge our worth by the number on a scale. It’s everywhere, from ‘beach body’ ads to well-meaning relatives commenting on our weight.

The thing is… it’s often hard to explain to well-meaning people what ‘diet culture’ conversation looks like, what it does to us as people, and why it won’t make us healthy. I wrote a bit about it in this old TBT piece.

And that’s why Christina Chaey’s piece is so damn good.

She lays it all out — the mental spiral after a prediabetes diagnosis, the return of food anxiety, the obsessive googling. It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s probably familiar to a lot of us.

But here’s the kicker: she doesn’t leave us in the pit. She shares how she’s learning to ditch the ‘good food/bad food’ binary and make choices that actually work for her body and mind. It’s a refreshing take on dealing with health concerns without losing your sanity over food.

You can read it here. Worth your time.

5) “Things I Wish I Knew 8 Years Ago”

This Reddit post is fitness gold. It’s the all-time top post on r/fitness, and damn, it delivers. The author drops 12 knowledge bombs based on his eight years of experience with hardcore lifting and an exercise science degree.

They talk about often-overlooked wisdom: why filming your lifts can really help you with your form, how kettlebells offer unique strength-building benefits, and why traditional ab exercises might be holding you back. It also touches on the surprising importance of breathing mechanics in lifting and how understanding basic anatomy can transform your approach to exercises.

I really liked it, and it’s a list worth returning to. Timeless advice. If you are starting your lifting journey, do read this. And I think even some experienced folks will find things to explore and reflect on to level up their gym game.

Read the Reddit post here.

That’s it for this one. Hope you find these links valuable.

Also, a reminder that we are always open for article ideas from our readers (what should we talk about?) and suggestions on what we can do better. And if you have a story to tell, or want to contribute an article for TBT, please write to me at samarth@thewholetruthfoods.com. (We are accepting pitches.)

Have a great weekend! 🙂