Salt, you are evil.

Most Americans have too much salt(sodium) in their diet. Doing so leads to all sorts of problems from high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease to enhancing the possibility of an onset of a Meniere's attack, a disease I have unfortunately. More on this in a bit.

Today I went to get my teeth cleaned by my dentist who happens to be my childhood dentist. Though I've had many dentists in my adult life, they kept leaving the business for one reason or another: retired, got pregnant, moved with husband who was a dentist to another state, etc. So i eventually said screw it and went back to the guy who has been there for 30+ years in Naperville. After my visit, no cavities!, I met my folks for lunch at one of their favorite haunts, The Olive Garden. Now, I know I just recently wrote about having one of my first experiences at The OG not too long ago, which makes it kind of ironic that my folks wanted to go there. Not having tried many of the dishes and trying to drop some weight as I prepare for softball season, I opted for the soup and salad special for $6.95. It's quite the deal really: unlimited soup and salad and breadsticks.

Now I get back to my first paragraph topic: salt. When I have too much salt in a day, my left ear starts to ring. This is the ear with the imbalance in it that leads to severe vertigo. It's also the ear in which I've lost about 30% of my hearing. Even as I write this at 9:00 p.m., my ear is ringing up a storm. So I looked up the nutional content of the various dishes on The Olive Garden's website. Boy, was I shocked!!! I had no idea how bad this food is for you. Below is a sampling:

		Total Fat	Sat. Fat	Sodium
	Calories	(g)	(g)	(mg)
Breadstick (with garlic-butter spread)	150	2	0	400
Garden-Fresh Salad (One serving with dressing)	350	26	4.5	1930
Chicken & Gnocchi (One serving)	250	8	3	1180
Chianti Braised Short Ribs	1060	58	26	2970
Pasta e Fagioli (One serving)	130	2.5	1	680
Eggplant Parmigiana	850	35	10	1900

Here's the RDA table:

For people 4 years or older, eating 2,000 calories per day, the RDIs are:
Total Fat	65 g
Saturated Fat	20 g
Sodium	2300 mg

So my soup (chicken and gnocchi) and salad meal is murder on sodium. The entree that I loved when I was there, Braised Short Ribs, has 129% of my DAILY allowance. Unbelievable.

In a nutshell, it's not that The OG has good food, they just salt the hell out of it until it tastes good. I really don't want to know about the butter and fat figures, though I present some of them above.