Salt. Salt. And more salt. Fact Checker examines the sodium content of a meal at the Marketplace

✔✔✔Good day fellow Dukies.

We recently pointed out the excessive salt being used in food sold in the Medical Center's dining rooms for out-patients, the public and staff. Those facilities, as well as Fuqua's Dave Thomas Center, are run by Aramark, the international giant that for many years had a grip on a captive audience of students as well, dishing out just awful gruel and mystery meat.

Our earlier post:
http://dukefactchecker.blogspot.com/2011/08/dining-at-duke-chicken-sandwich-with.html

So -- from the perspective of sodium -- salt -- let's go to the Marketplace (the words are run together at Duke), run with considerable fanfare about healthy living by Bon Appetit.

Salt: remember, please, that healthy people should consume less than 2,300 milligrams a day. And on the website of the Mayo Clinic, there is a recommendation for a 1500 mg a day limit "if you're age 51 or older, or if you are black, or if you have high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease."

So let's do breakfast and dinner in the MarketPlace. Remember, it's all you can eat, but we specify the portions taken. And in terms of calories, you'll be consuming around 2300.

GOOD MORNING:

310 mg Two scrambled eggs
1320 mg Three thin slices of Canadian bacon
600 mg One corn muffin
80 mg One butter
105 mg Glass of 1 pct milk

2415 mg TOTAL for breakfast

GOOD EVENING:

1980 mg Bowl of clam chowder
Unknown Crackers
1450 mg Turkey 5 oz
Unknown Gravy
679 mg Side of mashed potato
Free Veggies
320 mg Pita
150 mg Glass of chocolate milk
480 mg Pecan pie

5059 mg TOTAL for dinner

FURTHERMORE, other options

490 mg Tomato Juice
760 mg Sausage, 3 links
710 mg Kix cereal
1010 mg Soy sauce packet
3249 mg Teriyaki sauce packeet
950 mg Pesto sauce 1/2 cup
1220 mg Chicken sandwich (fried)
670 mg Slice of pepperoni pizza
1230 mg Hamburger with bacon and cheese
830 mg Hot dog
530 mg Potato salad, 1/2 cup
1040 mg Chili with meat 1 cup
1460 mg Pretzel snack, 3 oz

In some respects, the Marketplace is better than Aramark food, on the salt index.
Pepperoni pizza 670 v 935. But is not something to write home about.

FC finds all this unacceptable. Our dining halls, after all, tout themselves: "Our goal is providing a healthy and enjoyable experience, no matter where you dine on Duke’s campus."

There's nothing healthy about a buffet that makes it easy for you to consume four times the recommended salt intake for healthy people.

Thank you for reading FC. Excuse me while I go get a hot dog and potato salad.