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

[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.