Salt

[idun]

If I make just about everything we eat and we get through a 750gr Salt container every three to four months, 3 adults. Is that about right, as there is salt in some foods. Or are we still having too much salt?

[Pommier]

I think that's quite a lot. We mostly don't add salt in cooking (bread and sausages are notable exceptions needing quite large amounts of salt).

Mostly the salt is on the table to be added onto the cooked food as wanted. I think you do get used to salty tastes and it's hard to reduce as at first the food tastes a bit bland, but after a time you get accustomed to the reduced salt level.

[Chancer]

If you cook everything from fresh and dont eat any foods containing salt, bread breakfast cereals, sausages, sauces, gravy granules, etc etc then you are getting about the right amount, otherwise too much, NHS says less than 6g per day for an adult.

I have about 100g left in my 750g container that I bought when I moved to France nearly 7 years ago but it only gets used to add to cooking, or i should say was used, I never add salt now preferring to use rock salt to season at the table if needed.

Nowadays my sole salt intake is a twist of the rocksalt mill on my porridge in the morning, a little bit from sausages and the occasional splash of worcester sauce, in summer when I am working and training hard i do have to add some salt and lemon juice to my water to prevent muscle cramps, so in my case its easy to know when I am not getting enough salt but the majority of people dont have any indication that they consume too much.

[Jay]

[quote user="idun"]If I make just about everything we eat and we get through a 750gr Salt container every three to four months, 3 adults. Is that about right, as there is salt in some foods. Or are we still having too much salt?[/quote]

Eat plenty of low salt BANANA BREAD

[NormanH]

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/salt.aspx

[Chancer]

I just had a look at the Toulouse sausages in my fridge, 2 bangers contain the equivalent of 3.4g of salt, more than half the daily allowance.

[idun]

That was interesting NH.

My blood pressure is low, husband's is about right with medication. Proper chefs go mad about underseasoning, and so do I. I like my pleasures and one of them is food. On that link of NH's it said to rediscover the taste of food by not using salt, IF I forget to put it in I taste and food loses it's wonderful charm. I am gourmande, I love my food and I love it properly seasoned.

 

There was I thinking I was being good only using about 215grs a month for 3. Ah well.

[Russethouse]

 One day I watched a Breakfast program with Selina Scott (it was ages ago...)interviewing a doctor who advocated not using salt in cooking (to add to veg water etc) Selina Scott looked horrified and said 'You can't expect people just to give it up like that can you ?' The doctor just said 'why not, you are a grown up' ! We stopped pre salting our food  then, if we feel the need we add a bit of salt at the table, but my OH likes Marmite which is salty, we like cheese which again is salty, OH  makes his own bread and adds the minimum - I like a little salt on tomato's or a boiled egg, I may add a little to meat dishes if its needed but thats it !

[Gemonimo]

I love salt, too. I've never calculated how much I use but I'm sure it's too much.  My favourite way of having salt is in butter with grains of sel de guerande on fresh bread. My son did tell me that Marmite on bread already covered with butter and sel de guerande was perhaps over kill[:-))] While my folie is salt, I'm happy to say that I probaly only buy two kilos of sugar a year.

[suein56]

[quote user="Gemonimo"]I love salt.[/quote]

I absolutely loathe salt; always have apparently.

When I was a small child I often involuntarily vomited. As then - way back in the early 50's - 99% of food was home cooked, nobody thought to question food preparation/serving, the Doctors thought there was something wrong with me ie some bizarre illness. But, other than being found to be rhesus negative, nothing untoward was discovered. When I became a teenager and practically stopped eating - in the 60's ie Twiggy and all that - the symptoms virtually disappeared. Nobody twigged, me included, until I went to live in Spain aged 19 and my diet changed totally as I was sourcing food for myself. Absence of untoward symptoms immediately became commonplace and life has been like ever since, unless I eat at someone's house where they use a lot of salt. Boy do I feel ill afterwards.

So for me salt is a disaster.

Life is interesting, n'est-ce pas?

Sue

[idun]

As you too are a lover of sel de guerande Gemonimo, this is what I love. If I am cooking salmon fillets, I put a little butter in a heated  frying pan and then scatter about a teaspoon full of sel de guerande in the pan just before I add the salmon.

 

French friends also put a liberal sprinkling of it in a Pot au Feu as they serve, almost exciting food, croquing a bit of salt and it eclats .......... could just eat that NOW!

 

I'll not give up my salt. I remember in primary school hearing a story. A king asked his three daughters how much they loved him. Two said things like as much as the world blah blah. And the third said, as much as salt. Upset he said he would banish her, but as she left the palace, she told the cooks to use no more salt. And the king tasting his food then realised how wonderful salt was in food and bade his daughter return. I love salty things. In fact recently when I fancy a little snack, I usually go for salty things rather than chocolate.

 

[Rabbie]

This thread reminds of the small scots boy's defintion of salt. He said Salt is what makes pooridge taste funny if you don't put it in. [:)]

[Clarkkent]

Someone better versed in chemistry may correct me, but if salt can be tasted in cooked food, then that means that the salt has been held in solution during the cooking process and has not combined with any other chemical to form a different chemical substance. If that is so, then it matters not whether the salt is added during preparation or serving - any perceived taste benefit from the early adding of salt is just that: a perception. Professional cooks add salt because that is what they have been taught to do and they have not given the practice any thought.

My kitchen is a salt-free zone, my table is not. I gave up adding salt years ago, I do not add salt to my food but anyone eating with me is free to do so. I think that they are masking the true flavour of their food in favour of a learned taste experience. There is sufficient naturally-occurring salt in our everyday food to provide that which is physiologically necessary.

I eat out socially quite often and occasionally find the food presented to me to be so salty as to be unpleasant.

[Gardener]

The only food that we have salt on is chips. It very rarely gets put in food in our house, only if I am asked to taste a curry or similar that is lacking 'something' and a little bit of salt may get added.

You can get used to having food without salt, like tea without sugar. I don't miss it at all and it tastes fine.

[Anton Redman]

I always find it odd that daily allowances make no allowance for where you are or what you are doing.

In summer mixing concrete I suspect i sweat a fair amount out. Stuck behing a comoputer inwinter ?

[Gemonimo]

[quote user="idun"]

French friends also put a liberal sprinkling of it in a Pot au Feu as they serve, almost exciting food, croquing a bit of salt and it eclats .......... could just eat that NOW

[/quote]

So do I, Idun, especially when the PaF is cold and served en salade with some petit freres and good mustard. I could just eat that NOW too, but must make do with a bowl of chilli[:(]

[idun]

[quote user="Clarkkent"]

Someone better versed in chemistry may correct me, but if salt can be tasted in cooked food, then that means that the salt has been held in solution during the cooking process and has not combined with any other chemical to form a different chemical substance. If that is so, then it matters not whether the salt is added during preparation or serving - any perceived taste benefit from the early adding of salt is just that: a perception. Professional cooks add salt because that is what they have been taught to do and they have not given the practice any thought.

My kitchen is a salt-free zone, my table is not. I gave up adding salt years ago, I do not add salt to my food but anyone eating with me is free to do so. I think that they are masking the true flavour of their food in favour of a learned taste experience. There is sufficient naturally-occurring salt in our everyday food to provide that which is physiologically necessary.

I eat out socially quite often and occasionally find the food presented to me to be so salty as to be unpleasant.

[/quote]

 

Salt was always such a precious commodity, ie salary. I loathe and detest un seasoned food. I never over do it, but I season.  I have a reputation amongst friends as a good cook and even the non salters, and I do know some, have ever left anything or said other than good things. I am good at  few things in this life, but what I put on my table should always please, and that is my aim. 

 

Salt added afterwards is actually disgusting, if no salt is added during the cooking process, then salting at the table is not good, even for me. All one ends up tasting is salt as it never marries as it should. It should enhance flavours as garlic can in some dishes, obviously not trifle, for example.

And now I feel like eating some kettle crisps with crushed black pepper and could be bought in France, at least in our local leclerc we could.[:D]

[Gardener]

I don't know how you can say with such assurance that you don't over do the seasoning. A lot of times when we have eaten at peoples house, I have found the food over seasoned due to the fact that they are smokers and can't taste anything;) , they may well find our food underseasoned, we can only rely on our own taste buds. With salt on the table, people can adjust the taste to their own preference, you can't remove it from the cooking. Though I can't understand people who liberally dose food with salt and pepper before they have tried their first mouthful. That is almost an insult.

[idun]

I have never smoked. I do slightly underseason now as my husband has blood pressure and it is a reluctant concession.

 

I'm not good a much in this life, but cooking I can do very well. And I am very assured about it. IF by chance I did over season, my guests would not get it, neither would my family. Yes, very assured.

 

 

[Chancer]

[quote user="Gemonimo"] While my folie is salt, I'm happy to say that I probaly only buy two kilos of sugar a year.[/quote]

Only?

Thats more than I have bought in a decade and certainly more than I have consumed in a few decades, consumed as in added to food or drinks that is, I must have eaten tons of it that the manufacturers added on my behalf.

I only ever use sugar if I am cooking a dessert for others or to add to coffee for others (no-one will accept my offer of tea) and for that i find they prefer sugar lumps, I bought 1kg of sugar lumps and 1kg of granulated sugar in 2005 when I came to France, there remains 800G of sugar and 300g of the cubes.

I guess that I am lucky in not having a sweet tooth, I still have all my teeth and am not diabetic unlike the majority of my friends of my age, mind you I eat close to 7kg of fruit a week which is a lot of fruit sugar.

Which brings me to my partial thread hijack:

Is eating too much sugar, whether in processed foods, added to drinks or from fruits/fruit juices, carbonated drinks as bad for your health as too much salt? What is a reasonable amount especially where fruit is concerned?

[idun]

I know little about this. There was a time when I could eat sweet things for England, but my tastes have changed.

 

A kilo of fruit a day sounds a lot to me. I have a banana (as I can again) an apple and  a pear or grapes each day. No idea how much that weighs, but not a kilo. A kilo of fruit will have quite a bit of sugar in it. If your sugar levels are OK then surely you'll be fine.

 

 

[Rabbie]

As someone who tends not to add much salt when cooking I find that it does make a difference when you add it. For example I always boil rice in salted water because adding salt afterwards does not produce the same taste. I suspect that the degree of seasoning is very much a matter of personal preference and  a matter of what you are used to.

I am also sure that too much sugar is also harmful if only because it leads to people being overweight. Nowadays much readymade food contains high carbohydrate (especially sugar) values to improve palatibilty because they have reduced the salt and fat content. It is surprising how many people think that just because something is low fat then they can eat it without putting on weight.

[NormanH]

On the question of sugar, fruit etc, I think that the glycemic load is more important than just the quantity of  carbohydrate.

If you look at this table scrolling down to the fruit section you can see that most of them have a low value compared to pastries or breakfast cereals

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Glycemic_index_and_glycemic_load_for_100_foods.htm

I found when trying to lose weight that vegetables are filling but have less sugar than fruit, so upped my intake of those, and had rather fewer bananas etc [:'(]

On the salt issue I have now re-found  the DASH diet

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dash-diet/HI00047

and

http://www.heartandstroke.on.ca/site/c.pvI3IeNWJwE/b.4119695/k.9ECB/The_DASH_Diet_to_lower_blood_pressure.htm

[Judith]

Been busy so only just seen this.

Except for making brine for olives and sugar for jam and the occasional cake, I cannot remember when I last bought sugar or salt.  I have moved around with a tin of cerebros salt for years, and though I add some salt to stews and have a salt pot on the table, it is used for tomatoes, salad, boiled eggs and the like.   Also bread, when I make it.  I gave up adding salt to veg, rice etc long ago ...

I am now of the opinion that many cooks over salt - from habit - and indeed I have eaten meals which seemed tasty, but then realised it was salt I was tasting......  I managed to give up sugar in all but black coffee long ago, and only now need sugar in coffee otherwise if it is too strong and bitter .... I do like my butter slightly salted .... but don't use huge amounts of that either.

With high blood pressure I try not to use more salt than needed, but some is required, especially if you also drink a lot of water, and certainly in the summer when sweating ....

 

[tonyinfrance]

Growing up in Nigeria in the 1960s I used to eat salt sandwiches.  Excellent!

50 years later my doctor is deeply unimpressed with this explanation of my continuing love of salt........