by Cecile C.A. Balgos

	Photo by Jojo Pasana

“TELL ME what you eat,” French food writer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said almost two centuries ago, “and I shall tell you what you are.” In modern-day Philippines, those words still ring true, with the contents of a dining table revealing much about the diner, including the size of his wallet. Where one usually eats is a good indication of one’s status in life, especially in the cities like Metro Manila, where the dining divide is vast and prices and restaurant protocol discourage a commingling of paupers and princes. Of course, from time to time, the princes cross over and eat at Jollibee. Money, after all, gives one the privilege of having choices, which increase in proportion to the amount one can and is willing to spend. But it’s no guarantee of a discerning palate or good judgment, which is why restaurants with mediocre food and atrocious prices continue to exist and why well-heeled parents fill half their grocery carts with instant noodles for their kids. It’s bad enough that there are really thousands of families who cannot afford anything else but instant noodles to stave off pangs of hunger. But scores more who should know better and can take their pick from the supermarket shelves are actually opting to fill their bellies with instant pancit with frightening regularity, from breakfast to midnight snacks.

Today’s fast-paced lifestyle has proved to be a great societal leveler. Convenience has become the key consideration in putting together a family’s daily menu, both for the moneyed and the masses, especially now that two-income families have become common, even as reliable househelp has become as rare as erudite senators. That’s largely why instant noodles are such a hit in this country, as are canned goods like corned beef, meat loaf (read: Spam and Maling), tuna, and sardines. One could even say these have become the new Pinoy staples, never mind if they seem more appropriate as emergency rations. They’re relatively cheap (well, excluding Spam), quick to prepare, and — admit it — quite tasty.

There’s the hook: more often than not, these quick foods are loaded with sodium in a variety of forms, pleasing the Filipino palate, which is a slave to salt, among other things. Sodium serves to preserve the food in some instances and to enhance the taste in all.

Enhancing may be an understatement, though. The label of a popular brand of pancit canton, for instance, says that each 65-gram serving (or the whole packet) has about 1,760 mg of sodium or 73 percent of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of 2,000 mg a day. Unlike the mami variety, which is often shared by many members in a lower-class household, a packet of instant canton is consumed usually by just one person. Ravenous teeners and office workers have been known to consume two packets each in one sitting, sometimes at breakfast, which means they start their day already packed with almost twice the amount of sodium their bodies should have for the next 24 hours. But like most Pinoys who get restless if their jaws aren’t working (talking as well as eating), they will still be plowing through snacks, lunch, more snacks, and then dinner. More salt will be present in those foods, which could be accompanied by condiments such as patis or soy sauce. A tablespoon of patis or fish sauce has 1,394 mg of sodium while an equivalent amount of soy sauce has 1,423 mg. By the time they go to bed, our canton-eaters will have a lot in common with Lot’s wife after she turned around and had a last look at Sodom and Gomorrah. No wonder hypertension is among the top five causes of morbidity among Filipinos.