Salt

[snousle]

An interesting article about salt in processed foods:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/health/30salt.html

The article provides many examples of how salt is used to mask low ingredient quality. The descriptions of manufactured foods without salt are enough to make me never want to touch them again.

I'm a salt freak, but I also recognize that quality ingredients taste good without salt. I can't think of a single exception. If something seems inedible without salt, that's because your body is telling you not to eat it!

This is the best argument I've seen for regulating salt in processed foods. In my view, it's not about eliminating salt, its about exposing a profound lack of quality and sweeping the low-end crap out of the market entirely. I've long suspected that obesity is a reaction to an absence of micronutrients in processed foods. It may be the body's effort to get enough of some essential (but possibly unrecognized) compound without any instinct for where to find it. If salt regulations force poor quality products off the market, they might well improve health regardless of whether sodium intake is actually reduced or not.

Or, food manufacturers might just find another way to fuck up the nation's diet that will make things even worse.

Comments

[darkphuque.livejournal.com]

High salt diets in asia in general do not support a connection between salt consumption and obesity. Consider that Asians in general consume a lot of salt. In Japan, Shoyu and/or Miso are in almost everything... as is sugar. One would think their diet very unhealthy; but they have low incidences of heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.

Its salt's ability to mask inferior ingredients edible that does. Think about snacks....potato chips don't taste "right" without salt. Salt and sugar along with a diet high in processed foods from fast food vendors and soda machines is what is creating obesity... along with the lack of exercise. After school TV and computers have replaced running around play Cowboys and Indians.

What do you think...

[danthered.livejournal.com]

From the article:

“Once a preference is acquired,” a top scientist at Frito-Lay wrote in a 1979 internal memorandum, “most people do not change it, but simply obey it.”

H'mm. Frito-Lay? Or Philip-Morris? From here:

[...]salt need and cravings may be linked to the same brain pathways as those related to drug addiction and abuse[...]

Additional results here.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

And just think: Just like Starbucks, Frito-Lay has acquired just about all the competition. If you want potato chips, or other salty snacks, most stores carry only one brand: Frito-Lay.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

That was definitely an interesting article. The most salt-dense food that I like is one they mentioned as a problem for reducing sodium - chicken noodle soup. Of course, the most expensive boullion product I've tried is the one with both the lowest salt [relatively speaking, of course] and best flavor, "Better Than Boullion" paste. (And no, cooking soup from scratch is NOT going to happen in my case.) I get your point though - good peanuts taste good without salt; they just taste better WITH some. I would quite frankly get very pissed off if this movement changes my favorite peanut butter!

It occurs to me that foods that have traditionally been salty - before the mass processing of food began - should get a higher limit than "invented" foods that depend on salt to be edible.

Potato chips are an interesting phenomenon here. "Ruffles" have 160mg of sodium per 1oz. "serving" - whereas the "Lightly Salted" Kettle chips I prefer have 105mg and taste much better. Something not often pointed out by the anti-salt zealots is that even Ruffles have more than twice the potassium (340mg) than sodium - and the chips I eat have more than 4x potassium to sodium - 430mg to 105mg. For me, of course, it's more the carb content that limits my intake of such things these days.

[darkphuque.livejournal.com]

Have you ever tasted Campbell's Condensed chicken soup?
Its like licking a block of salt. Even with 2 cans of water to dilute it, its salty. Not all their soups are equally so. Campbell's cream of tomato is less so.

I never thought about the the other varieties of salt... now that's scary.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

I haven't eaten their condensed soup for some time, though it's what I grew up on - outside of when mom made homemade chicken noodle soup. I prefer a heat and serve Cream of Tomato soup that I get at Trader Joe's that comes in a TetraBrik, and making my own chicken noodle soup using Better than Boullion. That has 750mg of sodium per cup, and "chicken meat with natural juices" as the first ingredient on the label. Knorr's chicken boullion cubes have 1270mg/cup by comparison and I wouldn't be surprised if "salt" was the first ingredient. Obviously BtB isn't "low" in sodium - but it's obviously lowER than other options and tastes better than anything I've tried other than homemade soup.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Oh, and potassium counters the putative hypertensive effect of sodium, so potassium is a good thing. ;)

[oscarlikesbugsy.livejournal.com]

Salt is one of those commodities that is sometimes overlooked for "making the world go 'round", in favor of more popular issues like, say, oil.

Wikipedia has scratched the surface with this view of the economic important of salt and the almost insatiable consumer demand for the stuff (imagine a society with little or no salt, suddenly having access to it - would such a society 'give it up' or go to war to keep their access to it?).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_salt_tax_in_India