Salt
- Thread starter lookitsjonno
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Man of Honour
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I try to use as small a quantity as possible during cooking although I will tend to salt the water for potatoes/pasta etc. After cooking then it's just a case of seasoning to taste as normal.
It does make a difference I find (otherwise you wouldn't expect to see chefs adding it) but I prefer to run the risk of undersalting initially as it's easier to cure a lack of salt after cooking than it is to fix the opposite problem.
*facepalm*
greta discusion.
now how about debating it.
you said eating a totaly fresh made diet, you get more than enough salt intake. I disagree 500mg is the figure they have come up with, for absolutely minimum bodily function to be maintained.
I generally will try and buy the low salt/sugar foods where possible if they are processed (ie baked beans) as I'd rather add my own seasoning or not be overloaded with salt and sugar.
If I am doing my own cooking from scratch however I have no issue from adding salt (just not a large amount).
If I am doing my own cooking from scratch however I have no issue from adding salt (just not a large amount).
Man of Honour
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I don't particularly want to get drawn into this but wouldn't the 500mg be an average i.e. you could have some days where it's above and some where it's below without any ill-effects, or at least they would be so small as to be insignificant unless it was a regular occurrence?
Too much or too little of almost foodstuff may be less than ideal but in the Western World there appears to be a bigger risk from oversalted food than there does from undersalted - while it might be great to get a perfect balance I don't think it's completely unreasonable to err on the side of going with less salt rather than more.
Yep
and yep.
I wasnt disagreeing with oversalting.
western world doesnt have a massively diverse food intake. people trying to be healthy are likely to eat everything made themselves and the helathier cuts of meat, which are gain the ones lower in salt. meaning that its easily possible for such groups to not have enough intake.
Thats all ive said. I havent disagreed with him in any other area. other than you always get more than enough salt in even a fresh based diet.
It's not really a debate is it?
I'm pretty astonished that you somehow believe that you're making your food more healthy by adding salt. If you want to go on believing that, then that is your prerogative. I just hope you're not cooking for kids or anything.
Let's be honest here though, even if I provided you with conclusive proof that adding extra salt to your food was nutritionally superfluous and potentially harmful, you still wouldn't admit that you're wrong, would you?
Have you even read what I wrote?as for providing evidence, I haven't disagreed with you. Other than how much you get from eating a fresh diet.
If you can show me that a super low salt diet of less than 500mg is healthy and meets the bodies need, then I would change my mind. But you seem to think I'm saying something I'm not. Despite clarifying my point. Even you have said salt is vital.
If you can show me that a super low salt diet of less than 500mg is healthy and meets the bodies need, then I would change my mind. But you seem to think I'm saying something I'm not. Despite clarifying my point. Even you have said salt is vital.
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Soldato
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Do you happen to have any evidence that adding salt to home cooked food for a normal healthy person who does at least the recommended amount of excercise per week will cause long or short-term harm?
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Well said that man. I do exactly the same. I'm pretty sure I eat more salt than is recommended but I'm happy that my food tastes the way I prefer it. I doubt very much it's doing me any more harm than the 20+ I smoke a day or the large amounts of good malt whisky I pour down my throat.
Maybe if more people ate and drank to suit their likes rather than to conform to meaningless limits thrown out by faceless 'scientists', there'd be a lot less miserable gits about
Do you happen to have any evidence that adding salt to home cooked food for a normal healthy person who does at least the recommended amount of excercise per week will cause long or short-term harm?
There's an abundance of evidence relating to the negative effects of dietary salt. Here is a good place to start. Exercise doesn't really come into it, since more exercise isn't going to cause you to 'burn off' more salt.
I'm not saying you should never use salt in cooking. I use it myself. The disagreement was on the fact that Glaucas bizarrely believes that it is necessary to add salt to fresh food to add some sort of nutritional value. That's completely wrong. Your body needs a minute amount of salt in order to function, that's true, but you really don't need to add pure salt in order to fulfil the requirement because plenty of foods contain it naturally. You need plenty of vitamins and minerals to maintain a healthy diet, but you don't see people crumbling multivitamin tablets into their spag bol, do you?
If your objective is to improve the taste or preserve then fair enough, but lets be clear on the objective.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspiration
Personally, I don't worry about salt too much. I eat lots of home cooked things and not many processed things.
What I do cook I season fairly liberally to my taste.
The government guidelines are for no more than 2.5 grams of sodium, which is about 6 grams of salt.
2 and a half teaspoons of salt would weigh over 10 grams.
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Soldato
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Again your making up rubbish I havent said.
If like somepeople you eat a very "healthy" fresh diet. then salt intake will be stupidly low. lower than what is helathy. thus you need to add salt.
I never said everyone needs to add salt or that excess salt was good for you.
You do however need to have like all nutrients a minimum amount in your diet, that some diets just wont reach and thus supplament is needed. Low salt levels can lead to all sorts of complications, just like high slat levels can.
which is why people doing physcial exercise in summer all day will need more than average, same with water.
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Soldato
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I salt pretty much everything during and after cooking 
I salt pretty much everything during and after cooking
why would you do both when cooking foryourself?
why not just season it when cooking to perfection.