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Sodium and how F.I.R.S.T can be used to customise your level of sodium intake.

The point of this page is to describe that we have specially designed 4 different flavours of F.I.R.S.T with varying levels of sodium, so that athletes can purposely customise their level of sodium intake depending on the activity and exercise patterns, as opposed to some other companies who take a one sized fits all approach where their products all have the same level of sodium and which therefore aren’t as useful for athletes wishing to customise their diet to their activity.

In the food we eat most of the sodium comes from sodium chloride (salt), which is usually added to serve as a preservative and/or to increase flavour.

Salt is also called sodium chloride and it is the sodium in salt that can be a problem if the level consumed is too high but it can also can be a problem if it’s too low; this is what this section aims to clarify for users of F.I.R.S.T.

In the past (and frankly now too), many foods contained high levels of salt but it has been established that a link exists between high sodium intake and high blood pressure and thus there are now many "low sodium"  or "sodium - free" products available.

For people living regular (read – basically sedentary) lives, this is good advice and a low salt diet is indeed advised as sodium is a required element for normal body functions; it’s lost in sweat and urine and is replaced by food and drink consumed but you want the right amount per day.

For the general population, the UK, US and Australian government recommendations are to limit sodium intake to 2.3 grams per day, which is equivalent to 5.8 grams of salt.

Humans have a highly advanced capacity to maintain their sodium and water balance in a broad range of conditions which enables us to survive in adverse conditions but high level physical output test this survival tool because sufficient hydration and sodium consumption are crucial when undertaking these demanding pursuits.

Put simply, 2.3 grams of sodium is often far too low for people who lose significant amounts of salt during this type of high level exercise.

This additional increased consumption of sodium may need to reach or surpass 10 grams of sodium per day to make up for the levels lost by sweating and this is often coupled with fluid consumption of up to 10 litres per day too.

Both dehydration and sodium depletion adversely affect athletic performance but it’s often difficult to tell the difference between them both because often they take place at the same time and have similar potentially serious effects.

Human sweat contains from 2.2 to 3.4 grams of salt per litre and the level of sweating during a demanding activity, especially in hot conditions, can easily be in the vicinity of 1 litre per hour.

Therefore in a 10+ hour day of high level output, a person can lose 30 – 40 grams of salt and if it’s not replaced, hyponatremia (1) will almost certainly result.

Currently F.I.R.S.T comes in 4 flavours; 1 savoury and 3 sweet and accordingly the amounts of sodium varies significantly. In our Cream of Chicken savoury flavour the amount of sodium is 2 grams (or 2000 mgs) per 100 gram packet, in the 3 sweet options it is 300 mgs – a lot less.

We partly chose to have the sodium at this level for the Chicken because it’s obviously a savoury taste and sodium enhances taste but also so that we offer one model with sodium levels able to compensate for significant level sodium loss at high energy rates of expenditure.

This is fascinating but WTF does it actually mean?

THIS IS FASCINATING BUT WTF DOES IT ACTUALLY MEAN?

It means this …..

If you’re working really hard, sweating profusely and thus in need of high levels of sodium replacement, don’t be afraid of consuming multiple packets of our Chicken flavour.

For example, 4 X 100 gram packets of the Cream of Chicken soup or 2000 mgs X 4 = 8000 mgs (or 8 grams) of sodium is a lot if you’re writing emails or if you’re sending images of your junk via Twitter if you’re a New York congressman.

But it’s absolutely not too much if you’re doing it hard, working like a dog and sweating like one too.

Thus depending on your exercise levels (and tastebuds), F.I.R.S.T’s range of flavours give you the ability to customise your sodium intake.

For high sweat activities (like running a desert marathon), the Chicken flavour is very useful, for high energy expenditure but low sweat levels (driving a snow mobile across Antarctica) the sweet flavours are very useful and for moderate activity (XC ski touring) a combination of sweet and savoury flavours are suggested.

Remember that whatever flavour you use and the amount of sodium you ingest can also be altered by the other food and drink sources you take with you on the trip.

1. Hyponatremia is a metabolic condition in which there is not enough sodium (salt) in the body fluids outside the cells.

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