"Salt is a pretty amazing compound... have plenty of salt in your kitchen at all times"

[Liberal_in_LA]

The hard sell on salt

With salt under attack for its ill effects on the nation’s health, the food giant Cargill kicked off a campaign last November to spread its own message.

“Salt is a pretty amazing compound,” Alton Brown, a Food Network star, gushes in a Cargill video called Salt 101. “So make sure you have plenty of salt in your kitchen at all times.”

The campaign by Cargill, which both produces and uses salt, promotes salt as “life enhancing” and suggests sprinkling it on foods as varied as chocolate cookies, fresh fruit, ice cream and even coffee. “You might be surprised,” Mr. Brown says, “by what foods are enhanced by its briny kiss.” :eyes:

By all appearances, this is a moment of reckoning for salt. High blood pressure is rising among adults and children. Government health experts estimate that deep cuts in salt consumption could save 150,000 lives a year.

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But the industry is working overtly and behind the scenes to fend off these attacks, using a shifting set of tactics that have defeated similar efforts for 30 years, records and interviews show. Industry insiders call the strategy “delay and divert” and say companies have a powerful incentive to fight back: they crave salt as a low-cost way to create tastes and textures. Doing without it risks losing customers, and replacing it with more expensive ingredients risks losing profits.

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Now, the industry is blaming consumers for resisting efforts to reduce salt in all foods, pointing to, as Kellogg put it in a letter to a federal nutrition advisory committee, “the virtually intractable nature of the appetite for salt.”

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

[Mojorabbit]

1. Salt in moderation

enhances just about any food. Love it.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. it's hard to avoid in processed foods. It's tough to find spaghetti sauce without salt /sugar

[Cleita]

4. I don't know about the salt, but an Italian woman I used to work with

told me that some sugar is essential in making a good tomato spaghetti sauce.

[geckosfeet]

6. I make a pretty good sugar free tomato sauce.

[rfranklin]

8. You only need a tablespoon or so in a big pot....

Unlike the commercial sauces that taste like a dessert topping.

[GoCubsGo]

17. It cuts the acidity of the tomatoes.

You only need a very small amount--around a half a teaspoon for a 28 oz. can of tomatoes.

[Dr Morbius]

18. I prefer to add a little chianti. It cuts the acidity without adding sweetness,

and slightly improves the flavor.

[pipi_k]

29. I knew someone who added beer to his sauce

Pretty tasty.

:)

[DesertFlower]

20. my first husband was italian.

his mom didn't put sugar in the sauce, but some of the relatives did.

[alphafemale]

26. Just a pinch...but yeah.

It does something chemically with the acid I think. It's certainly not enough to be detected as "sweetening" per se.

Reading commercial spaghetti sauces ingredient lists where sugar...or rather HFCS is the second ingredient freaks me out a bit. eww! Pretty much the same with commercial BBQ Sauce or any purchased marinade.

[underseasurveyor]

27. Sugar counters the acidity of the tomatoes

So I was told by an Italian friend.

[Berry Cool]

37. Then put in cinnamon and garlic powder and you've really got a combo.

Skip the oregano.

[rfranklin]

7. Make your own...it takes very little time and...

if you make a big batch you can freeze it for future use.

[alphafemale]

28. Do you know how to actually cook it down from the 'mater?

I make sauce using canned pureed maters. And it's ...OK. But I'd love to do the real thing.

[jmowreader]

30. Try this...

http://www.ehow.com/how_4526262_fresh-tomatoes-beginners-guide-photos.html

[alphafemale]

34. Thanks...but wow...

That sounds really time consuming...and I don't have a food mill. What's a food mill?

Thanks for getting this though. That was nice. :hi:

[csziggy]

42. A food mill is one step up from a colander

Great for making apple sauce or apple butter. I found mine at Goodwill for about $2 decades ago and it still works great.

[alphafemale]

46. I'll keep my eyes open for one.

Thrift shops are my favorite places.

[tango-tee]

39. If you use "real" tomatoes

you need to make sure they are fully ripe. Some of the tomatoes from the grocery store have so little flavor even after sitting on the kitchen window sill for days, that I have given up on using them. Now, tomatoes from someone's yard... different story.

What will give you really good results are the canned, whole Italian plum tomatoes. Very flavorsome! Even my Italian landlady used those. When you add them to the sauteed chopped onions and garlic, break them up with a wooden spoon and let them bubble along with your seasonings. Simple, easy, quick and cheap.

Enjoy!

[alphafemale]

45. Great idea! Thanks!

I'll try it.

[Taverner]

2. Isn't most salt cargill harvests used in industrial settings anyway?

Chem Labs, Water Softening, etc...

I always thought table salt was pretty marginal in the grand scheme of things...

[Robb]

9. Yup. This is a side show. nt

[geckosfeet]

5. All the alkali salts, sodium, magnesium, calcium and potassium are absolutely essential for life.

Table salt has gotten a bad rap.

[Warpy]

10. I use plenty of Kosher salt

but I use it to scrub out my cast iron cookware when stuff sticks to it. It's also good on clogged drains with baking soda and a vinegar chaser.

It took me 24 years to use up a pound of sea salt. I kid you not. The price tag was still on it and that's how long it's been since I lived near that store.

[napi21]

11. I caution you to be careful about eliminating too much salt.

Several years ago, my mother was hospitalized, having lost a lot of her rational thinking. She told me about seeing her own funeral, who was there, etc. It turned out that she had disrupted her electrolyte balance mainly by not adding salt to ANYTHING! She had several bouts with high blood pressure some years prior to that and she just eliminated salt complletely. She cooked mostly fresh vegetables & chicken for her meals, so there wasn't any salt from the mfg. process. All it took to cure her problem was adding "a little" salt to her diet.

I think too much of anything is harmfull, but eliminating a necessity can be just as bad.

[RagAss]

12. Salt on an Apple......best ever.

[notadmblnd]

15. I love it on watermelon

[RagAss]

16. Yes !...that too...get that sweet and sour thing going !

[GreenStormCloud]

31. Yuck! My parents did that. As a kid hated to eat a watermelon with them.

I would mark off part of the melon as mine and ask them to be careful of the salt. For some reason they didn't slice melons, just cut it in half and attack it with spoons.

[tango-tee]

38. Same here!

Just a little sprinkling of salt... yum!

[Dappleganger]

48. me too--always did that as a kid.

[Odin2005]

25. Salt and pepper on kiwi fruit = YUM!!!

[WeDidIt]

13. I try to avoid the over processed shit.

I have high blood pressure, so when I use any salt it's a more exotic salt.

If your salt is white, try something else because that shit is just poison.

[Retrograde]

35. the "white shit" is closer to pure

Unless it has iodides added, the white stuff is usually just plain NaCl. The pretty colors in the expensive stuff come from impurities from the original salt deposits.

Salt is an essential nutrient, but best used in isolation. I use kosher salt, added at the end of cooking or at the table: the later it's added the more intense the flavor IMHO. I've learned to like a pinch of it on a green salad (with just olive oil and decent vinegar) after having it served that way in Italy: it stimulates the salt receptors and really peps up the greens.

Of course, if you use a lot of prepared ingredients you're going to get too much sodium, so the more you can make from scratch the better.

[WeDidIt]

36. Which is why the white shit is pure poison

The 'impurities' are micro-nutrients and if you must use salt, get as much in the way of micro-nutrients as possible.

[Swamp Rat]

14. Hot salty water = best remedy for a sore throat.

Kills infections

[GoCubsGo]

19. Also a good natural cleaner.

http://www.greenfootsteps.com/cleaning-with-salt.html

It makes a great skin exfoliant, as well. Loads of how-to's on the web.

[Hello_Kitty]

41. Yep. Works better than anything in the store.

Also makes the pain subside.

[mwooldri]

21. Depends on the salt.

For bipolar people, lithium salt can be a life saver. Of course when taking this salt you got to be careful...

[yella_dawg]

22. The problem with salt isn't in the table shaker.

The problem is processed foods. Salt and sugar tend to cancel. A dish too salty? A pinch of sugar can cut the over-salty taste. The thing is, the combination is tasty. Lots of oriental sauces balance salty soy sauce with sugar and it's mmm mmm good. Do that with three quarters of your food intake and you end up with an obese population with bad hearts.

[semillama]

23. nail on the head with your post

Normal salt use in cooking isn't a problem - it's the huge amount of added salt in processed foods. Same deal as with HFCS. It's just added when it's not necessary.

And to add to the subtheme of this thread: When in Columbus, Ohio, a must-have is a scoop of Jeni's Salty Caramel Ice Cream. To die for!

[Odin2005]

24. I have always had low blood pressure and I CRAVE salt.

it's most likely genetic, congenitally low sodium levels, I have the opposite problem of many people with tropical ancestry (like African-Americans), being of coastal Scandinavian ancestry my ancestor probably had to deal with too much salt because of the cool weather (less sweating) and proximity to the ocean.

[Hello_Kitty]

40. Same here. I actually have "too low" cholesterol too.

A doctor told me no amount of bacon and eggs would change that.

[HughMoran]

32. I love my sea salt grinder

Probably not what they were thinking of :P

[Odin2005]

43. I love ground sea salt!

Unfortunately I have to go ti Wal-Mart to find it! :grr:

[gleaner]

33. My husband had open heart surgery in 2008 ...

after contracting MRSA. He had to have a second surgery to put in an ICD to keep his heart beating in rhythm because the damage the MRSA had done to his heart and its valves was causing it to kind of quiver there in his chest and and caused the left ventricle to have half the normal output.

The first thing they told him was to cut salt down to no more than 2000 mg daily. Less if he could manage it. The uneven heart output and concomitant fluid retention made it necessary. Also his hypertension. We have managed. I cook without salt. I use dried herbs, onion powder, garlic powder and buy what ingredients that are low in salt or have no salt. I read labels and packages and count milligrams. It works. With a massive dose of diuretics to compensate for his damaged heart he is better. I tell you all this to urge you to watch your salt. I used to like the occasional Big Mac, but in one Big Mac you get a huge amount of sodium. More, I think than my husband's whole day's ration. I also cook without oil or fat. That helps too.

Bur salt is not healthy. It is tasty, but you would be surprised how good food tastes without being over whelmed by the flavor of it. It is used mostly for the convenience of food sellers because it is a preservative. Without all of the preservatives that they mostly don't have to name, the food industry might have to give us healthier ingredients to eat.

[Liberal_in_LA]

47. Salt is tasty, but so is food with little or no salt. We've grown accustomed to over salted food

got to get back to knowing what real food tastes like

[gleaner]

49. You're right ....

We really don't miss salt. When I make vegetable soup for my husband I make my own vegetable broth by peeling, cutting and simmering 2 zucchinis until they dissolve. Good thick broth. Then add herbs like thyme, basil, marjoram, oregano and onion powder. Minced onions and garlic cloves and the other vegetables including soaked and rendered beans and we have a very tasty soup.

It is also really easy to taste salt in foods you were not aware had it like soft drinks and such. When you get used to tasting the individual and natural tastes of various foods salt tends to leave a bitter after taste. Minestrone, Black and White Chili, chicken or beef stew anyone?

[BreweryYardRat]

44. A pinch of salt complements chocolate very well.

Lindt's, anyone?

Or that fantastic hot chocolate Starbucks serves during the holiday season?