The Bold and the Beautiful Recap, July 17 Episode: Liam's Shocking Homecoming Stuns Hope and Steffy
Liam released after surgery
At the private surgical facility, Grace told Bill that Liam was ready for an MRI and would be sent home soon after. Bill questioned this decision, as Liam had just gone through major surgery. Grace reassured him that an ambulance, a nurse, and proper equipment would be provided. Bill was hesitant but agreed. He later confirmed a USD 1 million transfer to Grace, who seemed pleased and took a mysterious phone call saying 'it's happening now.'
Liam soon returned from the MRI, visibly weak. Grace mentioned that the MRI results would come later but cleared Liam to leave. Bill thanked her and took Liam home to his mansion, where a nurse was waiting. He asked the nurse about the MRI results, and she confirmed she would share them once available.
Hope and Steffy alarmed over Liam's sudden discharge
At the hospital, Finn and Bridget were concerned about Liam's early release. Bridget trusted Grace's judgment but still felt uneasy. When Finn called Steffy with updates and Hope joined in, both were confused to learn Liam had been discharged. Bridget also discovered Grace was no longer in the building.
Hope and Steffy rushed to the hospital to understand what was going on. Soon after, Bill called Steffy to share more details. He revealed that Liam had undergone an experimental procedure by Grace and her colleague. Finn, Bridget, Hope, and Steffy were all shocked, especially since Liam was already home recovering.
Despite their initial concern, Hope and Steffy were relieved to hear that Liam was doing well. They realized Beth and Kelly might not lose their father after all. The possibility of Liam being cured gave them hope.
Back at Bill's mansion, Bill remained by Liam's side and said this treatment had to work. He was confident Liam would recover and live a healthy life.
Elsewhere, Deacon doted on Sheila and called her a hero like Liam. Losing her briefly had shaken him, but Sheila comforted him and offered reassurance.
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For instance, there is sodium bicarbonate or baking soda, the indispensable ingredient in bakery products. There's also monosodium glutamate or MSG which gives food its umami or savoury flavour and is commonly present in canned food. Then there's sodium nitrite, which is commonly used by commercial meat processing units to preserve meat, and sodium benzoate, which gives acidic foods and beverages such as colas, soft drinks, pickles, salad dressings and jams and preserves their shelf life. And for those into carbonated drinks such as diet soda, there's sodium saccharin to reckon with — all of which add to our sodium intake without any real addition of salt itself or table salt as we know it. Food critic and historian Pushpesh Pant reiterates the need for broadening the understanding of salt to manage one's sodium consumption. 'In Sanskrit, the word for salt is lavana, which does not necessarily mean sodium chloride, which we know as table salt. It could mean potassium chloride, sodium bicarbonate. It could be anything which is alkali,' he says. Khar, the alkali ash that is commonly used in food in the Northeast, is sodium carbonate, he explains. Experts broadly agree that among the easiest ways to combat this excessive supply of sodium to our bodies is to consume less table salt — and achieve a better balance of flavours. In his seminal 1998 work, A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, the late food historian K T Achaya notes that there are six 'pure' tastes: madhura (sweet), amla (sour), lavana (salty), katu (pungent), tikta (bitter) and kasaya (astringent). 'Every meal was expected to include all the six tastes, and in the order just listed, according to Sushrutha (ancient Indian physician and doctor),' the book says. Traditionally, the use of salt in cooking has been in tandem with the other five tastes, Pant explains, while saying that different regional cuisines in India have their own equation with salt. 'If you are a coastal person, most of your salt would come from sea water fish. The pungency of mustard oil, which is used generously in Bengali cuisine, ensures a limited requirement of salt…Now, if you are a Maratha living away from the coast line, and you are eating millets, which are not very palatable on their own, you will increase the levels of salt and chillies. Or if you are having preserved foods like papad or bari, salt content is higher,' Pant says. Concerns of excessive salt intake and its detrimental effects on public health have prompted a host of studies and small-scale interventions to produce 'low-sodium' salt. This involves replacing a part of the sodium in sodium chloride with other additives, primarily potassium. But so far, these experiments haven't achieved the required scale in India. 'The concern in salt is the sodium. To reduce sodium, other kinds of salts are added. Mostly, it is replaced with potassium but there are issues with low-sodium salts — it is expensive and its supply is short,' says NIN's Gavaravarapu. The practice of adding potassium to packaged common salt, however, is yet to take off on a mass scale in the country given the lack of India-specific studies and with little clarity around its potential benefits or perceived risks. Dr K Srinath Reddy, founder president of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) who formerly headed the Department of Cardiology at AIIMS, says that following initial trials across the world, where part of the sodium in salt was replaced with either potassium or magnesium, there were concerns over whether it could 'cause harm to people with reduced renal and kidney function'. 'Potassium is a bit corrosive, so we would have to use it in concentrations that won't damage the lining of the stomach and intestines. There were also concerns over whether low-sodium salt would cause hyperkalemia (excess potassium levels in the blood) in the elderly with renal function though there were successful trials in the US that said it was safe for them. But the findings weren't accepted because the trials were small,' Reddy says, while pointing to a study conducted in China by the George Institute for Global Health. With a 'fairly large' sample size of over 20,000 participants from 600 rural villages in five provinces in the country, the China Salt Substitute and Stroke Study (SSaSS), published in 2023 and conducted over five years, found that 'replacing salt with a reduced-sodium added-potassium 'salt substitute' significantly lowers the risk of stroke, heart disease, and death'. The institute has submitted a funding request to ICMR to conduct a similar study in India, said Dr Vivekananda Jha, Executive Director at The George Institute for Global Health, India. 'The study in China proves the point that lower than usual levels of dietary sodium can be tolerated without ill-effects, and a certain amount of potassium is required to balance the sodium. But whether that's going to become public policy in India, whether people are going to accept the altered tastes, we will have to see,' says Dr Reddy, emphasising that 'ideally', potassium, which negates the effects of sodium, should be consumed in the form of fruits and vegetables rich in the mineral. 'One can consume bananas and coconut water. But everybody may not be able to take all of it all through the year. So introducing a salt substitute like in the China trial is something we should maybe consider… Do some pilots to see what the response is, what the safety is, and what the popular acceptance is,' he adds. The last time a population-level health intervention in salt was carried out was in 1962, when common salt was fortified with iodine under the National Goitre Control Programme. Presently, all packaged salt sold in India, from common salt to rock salt, is iodised. NIN's Gavaravarapu flags another, largely behavioural, concern regarding low-sodium substitutes not being 'salty enough'. 'People think that because it is low-sodium, they can have more of it. Ideally, you should use it even less than usual so that the benefit of replacing it with potassium is passed on,' he says. While we wait for more research and consensus on reducing the sodium component in common salt, experts advocate the need to create awareness among consumers. Dr Reddy and NIN's Gavaravarapu reveal that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), a statutory body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, is looking at the feasibility of 'front of the package labeling' that would explicitly warn customers of high levels of sugar, salt and trans fat, among others. 'If a package notes that it has so many grams per cent of fat or carbohydrate or trans fats, unless I have studied nutrition, I wouldn't understand any of it. That's why you require warning labels that communicate clearly and help people recognise there's a problem with the salt or sugar in the product,' says Dr Reddy. The UK and Ireland, for instance, follow a 'traffic light packaging' model, where red, amber and green colours are used to indicate the levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt in food products. Public health scientist and epidemiologist Dr Monika Arora says the country needs a behavioural change in terms of salt consumption. 'Salt can be reduced in the food served in schools, hospitals and government canteens, which are regulated places. The tongue and palate get adjusted to a gradual reduction. Midday meal is an excellent way of going about it. Another way is to tax high-salt products, making it an incentive for the industry to start reformulating their products,' she says. Celebrity chef and entrepreneur Sanjeev Kapoor says he realised the dangers of excess salt much before it became a talking point. 'When I dived deeper into healthier food options, I realised that it is not only sugar that is the culprit, but also salt,' he says. He also joined hands with the government to raise awareness about healthy food habits through FSSAI's 'Eat Right Movement' that focussed on 'reduction of high fat, sugar and salt foods in the diet'. 'We have to understand that taste is something that you get used to. Your palate gets trained. Salt is a flavour enhancer. If there is low salt in a dish, other flavours may also seem muted. But it also hides flavours. Which means if you add too much salt in a dish, the top note is of salt and you never experience the real flavour of other ingredients. If you want to use less salt, you can start by enhancing the flavour with other ingredients. Lemon works really well as do herbs like mint, coriander, basil and tulsi,' he says. While cutting down on salt may seem like hard work, Kapoor's new catchphrase may hold the key — around 20 years ago, while he started with 'Namak Swad Anusar (salt as per taste)', he now swears by 'Namak Sehat Anusar (salt as per health)'.
