[bring to a boil]

saltandfat:

The New York Times has a fascinating page one story today about salt. It’s an interesting piece of reporting about the effect of salt on food, particularly processed food, and how the food industry has not just embraced but become addicted to salt over the decades. It’s also a peek into how the government regulates the food we eat and the tension between scientific research, the food industry, government and your average grocery shopper.

I always worry when I read stories likes this one, though, because I fear that the lesson learned at the end isn’t “eat fewer processed foods” but “salt is bad”. And since my email and twitter have already filled with questions about this latest salvo against salt, here’s my bit.

First, you need salt to live, just like you need fat, so completely getting rid of it, even if you could, is a bad idea. Second, the vast majority of salt consumed, particularly in Western diets, comes from processed foods, not from properly seasoning your food while you’re cooking — the NYT article claims processed and restaurant foods account for 80% of Americans’ salt intake.

The human palate is highly attuned to detect salt, which, along with finicky consumers, makes it difficult for processed food manufacturers like Kraft and Kellogg to significantly reduce salt without driving their customers away. Add to the fact that salt is a much cheaper additive than, say, fresh herbs, and it’s easy to understand why the food industry is reluctant to stop over-salting the food they process for us.

Which leads to an obvious recommendation: eat fewer processed foods, cook more, use fresh ingredients but don’t be afraid to properly season your food with salt. It’s obvious, though not necessarily easy, and it’s something we hope to help with.

I would like to elaborate that while these companies tend to lament reducing salt because it does in fact ruin the taste of their products, it does so by exposing their incredibly low quality.  Food is cheap today because often the very lowest quality, lowest priced ingredients are being used and processed food companies must then rely on added fat, sugar, and salt to disguise the results.  There is no reason for a corn based product such as Cornflakes to taste metallic with less salt.  That flavor comes from cheap sweeteners (malt flavoring, high fructose corn syrup) and chemically prepared vitamins (niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, thiamin hydrochloride, vitamin A palmitate and ascorbic acid). Furthermore, industrially mined salt and sodium-based food additives such as disodium inosinate are used to mask these flavors, not the more flavorful and natural, though more expensive, sea salt generally used in (non fast food) restaurants and home cooking.

Food might not taste as good when it has been under seasoned. True it might be bland, but it should never be unpalatable without salt as many of these processed products are.  

I could go on and on so instead here is an example of where all this sodium comes from in the rather hard to read list of ingredients and additives in Healthy Choice Roasted Chicken Monterey.