Thoughts

Why you should consider revitalizing your dining table

16.11.16


What do children want for their birthday nowadays? From the latest tablet, to a PlayStation, or a brand new bicycle, parents should realize which gifts could potentially cause their children to become psychologically and emotionally detached from them. Even before going through such a situation, I would rather suggest to you prevent this from happening by having a dining table in your house. 

What if you’ve already have a dining table? Then you must revitalize your dining table to be the center of your family’s daily activities.

At the dining table, parents will always have a chance to know their children’s activities during the day and vice versa because each family member has an opportunity to share stories and experiences in a relaxing atmosphere. Without distractions from the TV or other electronic devices, family interaction and communication processes can be more intimate during these times—the essence to maintaining family cohesion, emotionally and psychologically.


Family is the first social system one recognizes in life (Lewis and Feiring, 1982). The primary elements of this social system consist of parents and siblings. Extended elements of the social system could be grandparents, parents’ friends and siblings’ friends. The interaction within this social system is the greatest contributor to a child’s mental development. Two experts observed that the dining table activity within American families—especially during dinner—supported their argument; meals together serve the important function of maintaining the family system through the exchange of information between its members.

Children and all family members are guaranteed to get their chance of discussing something, sharing their stories and experiences, argue on some other topic, etc. The feeling of being heard is one of the most important elements to keeping emotionally and psychologically healthy in the long run. The dining table provides can create the necessary environment for this.  

The concept of utilizing the dining table to maintain the family system is rooted back in the early history of human civilization, of when humans entered the phase of food producer. Dining tables became the center of family activity where all family members could spend time together to cook and eat on a regular basis. As well as, at the community level, when humans started to live in communes, eating activities have always been considered a collective activity between one another in the family and community. 

The “dining table” should not be narrowly perceived as a “table” in its physical sense, but as the important activity attached to it. Every culture has their own name or their own form of the so-called activity surrounding the dining table. The French call it repas gastronomique, the Sundanese call it ngabotram, Padang people call it bajamba, and so forth. 

All the phrases that describe dining table activities involve similar values; togetherness, communication, interaction and emotional connection between one another. Here in Indonesia, we might have heard the Javanese proverb; mangan ora mangan, ngumpul means eating or not, the most important thing is gathering.   


In a modern industrialized society, dining table rituals could be a big challenge. Families are hardly finding time to be together to enjoy cooking and meals at the dining table as a routine activity. The father or mother must go to work from early in the morning to avoid traffic, children must go to school, and the young sibling might be the only one left in the house with the maid. Cooking activities and eating together as a daily routine has become rare due to the business of family members today. 

In an urban society, the tradition of dining together in a restaurant is an option. Thousands of families go out on the weekend and flock to restaurants to enjoy their meals together. I would not say this is not effective compared to being at the dining table in your own house on a regular basis. But is it as effective when the interaction and communication with your children is taking place in a crowded atmosphere that we usually get in a restaurant? 

Back to the birthday gift for your children, make sure you have one well-functioning dining table in your house before you give your children presents. The psychological and emotional state of your children are in your hands, at your dining table. A child could become very busy with school, cycling on his/her new bike as their birthday gift or playing online games on their tablet or gaming console, but interaction and communication among family members is the most important activity to maintain. 

health

How you can reduce your salt intake

5.11.16


Some foods contain higher amounts of salt than you may expect. The biggest culprits are processed foods.

When it comes to dietary sodium, less is certainly best. Diets high in sodium increase blood pressure. High blood pressure damages the kidneys over time and is a leading cause of kidney failure.

Health risks and disease

Sodium (salt) has various effects on heart health. High salt intake increases blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease, while high potassium intake can help relax blood vessels, excrete the sodium and decrease blood pressure.

In most people, the kidneys have trouble keeping up with excess sodium in the bloodstream. As sodium accumulates, the body holds onto water to dilute the sodium. This increases both the amount of fluid surrounding cells and the volume of blood in the bloodstream. Increased blood volume means more work for the heart and more pressure on blood vessels.

Over time, the extra work and pressure can stiffen the blood vessels, leading to high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke. It can also lead to heart failure. There is also some evidence that too much salt can damage the heart, aorta and kidneys without increasing blood pressure, and that it may be bad for bones too.

In the study, people with the highest sodium intakes had a 20 percent higher risk of death from any cause than people with the lowest sodium intakes. People with the highest potassium intakes had a 20 percent lower risk of dying than people with the lowest intakes.

But what may be even more important for health is the relationship of sodium to potassium in the diet: people with the highest ratio of sodium to potassium in their diets had double the risk of dying from a heart attack than people with the lowest ratio, and they had a 50 percent higher risk of death from any cause.


Reducing salt intake

To help you reduce your salt intake to the ideal one teaspoon per day, here are some tips for cutting down on salt in your diet.

- Read food labels when shopping. Salt content in the same type of product can vary considerably between brands.

- Buy reduced-salt bread and breakfast cereals. The regular varieties of these common staples are loaded with added salt.

- Avoid highly processed products. Examples of convenience foods best avoided include flavored instant pasta, instant noodles, canned soups and dehydrated soup mixes.

- Make your own sauces. Popular processed sauces that contain lots of salt include soy sauce, tomato sauce, mayonnaise and salad dressings.

- Limit your consumption of salty snacks. Potato chips, salted nuts, pickles and most cheeses should be occasional treats, not a regular part of your daily diet.

- Cut back on processed meats. Varieties that are high in salt include salami, ham, corned beef, bacon, smoked salmon, sausages, frankfurters and chicken loaf.

- Cook with fresh or frozen vegetables. Canned vegetables tend to have added salt.

- Don’t add salt to food when cooking. Instead, add herbs or a splash of olive oil or lemon juice to enhance flavors.

- Put away the salt shaker. Try to break the habit of automatically salting your meals at the table.

- Eat takeaway foods only occasionally. When possible, choose low-salt takeaway options such as a salad.

- Use fresh, rather than packaged, meats. Fresh cuts of beef, chicken or pork contain natural sodium, but the content is still much less than the hidden extra sodium added during processing in products like bacon or ham. If a food item keeps well in the fridge for days or weeks, that’s a tip off that the sodium content is too high.

- Choose fresh fruits and vegetables as they are very low in sodium. Canned and frozen fruits are also low in sodium.

- When buying frozen vegetables, choose those that are labeled “fresh frozen” and do not contain added seasoning or sauces.

- Sometimes the high sugar content in a product like apple pie can mask the high sodium content so it’s important to check every label for sodium content.

- Select spices or seasonings that do not list sodium on their labels, i.e. choose garlic powder over garlic salt.

- Before dining out, do your research. Visit a restaurant’s website, which may list the sodium content of various dishes served there. Alternatively, when you’re at the restaurant and ready to order, request that the dish be served without salt.

- Beware of products that don’t taste especially salty but still have high sodium content, such as cottage cheese.

- If you have elevated blood pressure, dietary sodium restriction can not only lower your blood pressure, but can also enhance your response to blood pressure medications.

A preference for salt is an acquired taste that can be unlearned. It takes six to eight weeks to get used to eating food with much lower quantities of salt, but once it’s done, it actually becomes difficult to eat foods like potato chips because they taste way too salty.