They can take the salt from my cold, dead (probz sodium overdose
) hands.
But maybe helpful for thems who need to cut down.
They can take the salt from my cold, dead (probz sodium overdose
) hands.
But maybe helpful for thems who need to cut down.
I’m with you. All my favorite foods are savory, and skew a little salty. People can have all the chocolate, and I’ll hoard all my chips and crunchy savory snacks. It will be right next to my trucks of bread and carbs.
Plain herbs and spices helps a lot. But I often use way less salt than some recipes call for. Depends on the dish. You can always add some near the end if your taste-test proves bland. Harder to take away, other than adding more of everything except the salt.
Commercial herb/spice blends often have salt first on their ingredient list (including my beloved Penzeys blends). So I’ll look at a mix if I’m interested in it and note the ingredient list and its order and try and come up with my own - cutting WAY back on the salt.
Most commercial rubs you buy are salt-forward, and are usually WAY WAY too salty for me. I’d rather make my own and control it.
Processed foods - I try and avoid them 80% of the time, maybe more. But I’ll have a frozen pizza on occasion, or a Rana fresh pasta item. I don’t often buy deli meats - usually enough for 3 sandwiches in a given week, but then I will go for months without buying them.
But you will take commercially made bread and bagels from my cold, dead hands.
I don’t think I’ve ever measured salt, sugar, or other spices/herbs I add to my food. But I rarely follow recipes ![]()
I measure for baking. But if something calls for a tsp of dried thyme, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp ground pepper, etc., it’s all poured into my palm or on to a mise dish - all done by eyeball. And with herbs, I often add a good bit more.
I trust my eyeballs, but not my baking skillz. I hate measuring shit.
My PIC does the baking, and he is def a recipe follower ![]()
It must be 25+ years since I took the plunge to cut back on salt (even before I stopped smoking and drinking alcohol). I no longer cook with salt, nor do I add to my own plate. I found I missed it for about the first month but, after that, It’s been fine. Now if something comes salted, I find it’s pretty much all I can taste.
Wow. I can’t imagine not using any salt, ever, but I suppose one can get used to almost anything.
Glad it works for you and your palate.
I’m the exact opposite: The amounts called for in a lot of the savory recipes I look at are way too little for my taste. America’s Test Kitchen especially; I regularly need to double whatever is specified in their recipes. I drink a lot of water and do a lot of cardio, so I hope I’m offsetting any damage, but I’m definitely well above the RDA for salt consumption and have no plans to stop. (Blood pressure is well within normal range!)
I’m definitely a fan of salty vs. sweet, but the one thing that helped me cut back on salt was being without it. A few years ago, we had a really bad water leak in our house and had to move to a residence hotel for a couple of months. We had a kitchenette and ate variety of things I cooked, and prepared foods from a local market. I kept forgetting to buy salt and finally stopped thinking about it. I realize that the prepared foods had plenty of salt, but I really cut back on adding salt to everything like I used to, and it changed my palate. Since then, I still use a little salt on things like meat, pasta water, and eggs, but way less than I used to. I wouldn’t recommend this experience, but it worked!
From the article:
While you can cut back on table salt when cooking, [about 70 percent] of the sodium you eat comes from packaged, prepared or restaurant foods.
I find a lot of prepared foods way too salty. When I cook, I salt lightly during the cooking process and almost never add salt at the table. In many cases, I find using about half the salt called for in recipes is sufficient for them to taste good.
I cook from scratch 99% of the time, so I’m not really worried about the sodium in prepared, packaged, or restaurant foods ![]()
And while I may salt generously, it still doesn’t amount to … unhealthy amounts.
I am trying to cut back on salt, primarily for the parental unit, but I’m also hoping to benefit. I am often frustrated by recipes that serm healthy in every other way, but have a ton of sodium per serving in them. Then i took a look at the box of iodized salt in the kitchen and figured it out. Even a tiny bit of salt contains a lot of sodium. So even if you don’t use packaged food, if you use any bit of salt (like salting chicken), that’s a good part of it.
Anyway, we’re cutting a lot of packaged things out, and looking for good substitutes, but it very frustrating sometimes. One of the comments suggests getting bread at a bakery for lower sodium bread: I had been getting some really good rye bread at an out of town bakery before we started to try and cut sodium. So, the next time I was there, I asked about sodium and it was loaded with it! More than double, or maybe even triple, the regular bread we bought at the store.
Also condiments: not just ketchup, bur everything!
An endless amount of work. I have to figure out what to do about soy sauce. Even the low sodium soy sauce isn’t. We don’t use it a lot anyway, but sometimes it will be a major component of a recipe I want to make.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that any restaurant food will automatically be very high in sodium, so I figure besides minimizing those meals (better for me and the parental unit anyway), I should do my best at home.
some more ideas here
Lower salt dining out, post salty meal recovery
Help me with low sodium meatball recipe
Less Salty Take-out Food in the Greater Toronto Area
I barely use any sea salt or table salt at home.
I keep modifying my cooking style, and what I order when I’m dining out.
I actually need to increase the amount of sodium in my diet.