Why does processed food have so much sodium?

[Minoosh]

In addition to acting as a preservative (which most of these products probably don't need - they often also contain sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate which do the job quite well)

See, the preservation aspect doesn't make sense to me - I thought canning/freezing were preservation processes all by themselves. Salt in beef jerkey is another story.

For something like canned or bottled tomato juice, the canning process wrecks the flavor of the juice, so lots of salt is added to try to bring it back to life.

John Jones, please confirm with your spies ...

Another factor is that seasoning early in the cooking process requires more salt than seasoning later in the cooking process in order to achieve the same sensation of saltiness.

That, I'd never heard, but it makes more sense to me than the preservation aspect. Also - does the sodium benzoate add a significant degree of sodium, or is most of it from table salt?

Thanks for the link re: salt in cooking.

 

[Dancing David]

I can eat a tomato with a sprinkling of salt and it tastes good. But if I buy canned tomato juice, one small glass is going to give me something like 30 percent of the day's sodium requirement. And it doesn't even taste salty. If I get the lower sodium kind - it tastes like it needs salt.

I'm not talking about salt used to preserve, say, beef jerky. The high sodium content is true of just about all canned foods - which I thought were sterilized in the canning process - and I'm noticing it in frozen foods as well. A 220-calorie Lean Cuisine gives me a quarter of the day's sodium (with a good chance I'll salt it lightly as well).

Is the sodium coming from somewhere besides sodium chloride?

I think that it is an issue for US of A manufacturers, they add a lot of salt to everything. One of the weird things about going to Canada, is that the food is bland, pack your own garlic salt!

But if you eat bacon, pork sausage or hamburgers (outside of McDs) you will notice that there is much less salt.

Strange bacon with less salt is good.

 

[Dancing David]

Side note, as I become more concerned/conscious about cutting back on salt, I have been surprised at some of my findings....like:

- typically pretzels have WAY more salt than most other salty snacks (chips etc), and I don't just mean the big pretzels with chunks of salt the size of golf balls on them.
- one Tbs of soy sauce has about 2/3 of your entire RDA.
- one hot dog (the worst offenders) nearly half. Even the best of them for the most part are around 1/3 (that's just one mind you).
- many "processed" (frozen, pre-made) meals, 2/3 or more, and those are the smaller ones.

Yikes.

Add breakfast cereals,quick bread, bread and cheese as well.

 

[fuelair]

There are "no salt added" canned tomatos, I guess the salt is to make it tastier and sell better? I buy the low sodium stuff most of the time.

Ranb

A lot of things that are no salt added still have a lot of salt!!! I'm a long time label reader!!! And, you are correct........

 

[fuelair]

I think that it is an issue for US of A manufacturers, they add a lot of salt to everything. One of the weird things about going to Canada, is that the food is bland, pack your own garlic salt!

But if you eat bacon, pork sausage or hamburgers (outside of McDs) you will notice that there is much less salt.

Strange bacon with less salt is good.

I carry several spices with me when I am elsewhere than local.

 

[fuelair]

Sounds good - would that be salted butter or unsalted?

My former-in-laws always had both gezalsen butter and suse butter (with an umlaut and a letter I can't make, but pronounced zewsa butter). They had different tastes.

Actually I use both depending on where I buy the most recent butter. Prefer unsalted generally - though the original reason for salted was so you would not notice the tastes of chemical changes as the butter soured. Less of a problem nowadays...... and it is divine. Hard to believe something so simple could be so delicious!!!

 

[Bikewer]

According to "food writers" like Michael Pollan and others, its because salt and sugar are addictive. That they both produce similar endorphine-like responses in the brain and that we rapidly begin to crave same.
More salt, sugar, and fat in the processed food, more sales....

The industry says (I recently listened to an NPR segment on this) says that these things are added to most processed foods to "enhance flavor".... That many of the things they produce would be either tasteless or vile without such enhancers.

Either way, it doesn't sound very appetizing......

 

[fuelair]

Funny. the only MFK Fisher I've ever read is a non-food book ("Among Friends")! But we appear to agree...

I think the Butter/garlic/spaghetti is in How to Cook A Wolf . I like her books and Elizabeth David's also. Unfortunately, they had no use for each other. I consider this terribly unfortunate as I suspect the two of them together would have been an even greater force in cooking - much moreso than individually . Sigh.... Perhaps because there were too many similarities. (Which is part of why I like both...)

 

[fuelair]

rats_ However I was going to comment on Bikewers' just above so I'll use this box to do so: Quite true on the additive's - though people have been doing this to foods for a long time to cover decay and contaminants. It's why I am off McDonalds and the like and burger at 5 Guys - they even use raw Jalapeno slices rather than pickled - and their fries taste like real potatoes - which you understand why the first time you see them haul a 50 lb. bag of same over to processing and start processing them. They are real potatoes - snd quite delicious, and you get a really, really lot of potato in your order. Even small and regular tax my FF skills to finish!!. I like the small burger (only one large, thick pattie - that could crush McD and equivalents without a thought) with cheese and Bacon and my add-ons (no charge for any/all of the big list of add-ons) are mayo, onion, jalapeno. Not cheap, worth every penny of the cost..... And the employees have been great in the three I have been to - I called the company to commend the manager at the first and to recommend one of the workers for management training if she was interested (my days in Bus. Admin Masters were not wasted, just boring........).

 

[bruto]

I have always assumed that the processors add salt because it enhances flavor without having actually to hunt up more expensive flavor, and because it makes you want to eat more of whatever it is in.

by the way, I see there is a 50th anniversary edition of MFK Fisher's collection The Art of Eating, which contains several of her earlier works. I read it many years ago, and don't remember too much except that it was good and it made me hungry.

 

[fuelair]

I have always assumed that the processors add salt because it enhances flavor without having actually to hunt up more expensive flavor, and because it makes you want to eat more of whatever it is in.

by the way, I see there is a 50th anniversary edition of MFK Fisher's collection The Art of Eating, which contains several of her earlier works. I read it many years ago, and don't remember too much except that it was good and it made me hungry.

Yes - I do not have it - I got the individual titles earlier........ and they are good and reading them should make pretty much anyone hungry. And encourage them to eat well!!!

 

[bigred]

Add breakfast cereals,quick bread, bread and cheese as well.

Cheese, yeah big time, but is that really a surprise to anyone?

Bread isn't so bad IMO - 2 slices (enough for a sandwich) contains about 20% of your RDA. Significant but I don't think eye-popping.

 

[Anerystos]

Is the sodium coming from somewhere besides sodium chloride?

Mono-sodium glutamate is frequently added as a “flavour enhancer”. There is no evidence that actually does any harm, it merely adds to the umami taste of foods.

Pity it's used: you can get all the glutamates you need from onions, tomatoes (chopped, not passata), parmesan cheese etc, which is why they are widely used in savoury cooking. (My wife says that if onions were hit by blight, I wouldn't be able to cook. She's right.)

Why buy ready made meals? Buy a good basic cookery book and follow the recipes until you have enough confidence to break out. In the UK, one of the best IMO is Xanthe Clay "recipes to know by heart". She gives the basic recipes and then "Good things to add ... "

Incidentally, again in the UK, don't add water to a beef or lamb casserole - use Manns Brown Ale. For pork or chicken, use cider or white wine.

Cooking is fun - for me it is, and always has been, a hobby - not a chore. You learn from your mistakes - especially when you have to eat them! But don't, don't, DON'T try to follow the TV chefs' recipes - expensive disaster!

 

[temporalillusion]

No one's brought up this book yet?

http://www.amazon.ca/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/1400069807

Pretty interesting read on the lengths companies will go to to maximize sales.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Quote
Pity it's used: you can get all the glutamates you need from onions, tomatoes (chopped, not passata), parmesan cheese etc, which is why they are widely used in savoury cooking. (My wife says that if onions were hit by blight, I wouldn't be able to cook. She's right.)
/quote

I figured out a year ago I'm allergic to onions, garlic, chives, everything in the allium family. I've lost 15 pounds not eating rice-a-roni or pasta when the family does, and I've had to totally relearn how to cook. It sucks, because I can't eat nearly any packaged or restaurant food. Just about everything has garlic or onion in it to add depth and pervasiveness to the flavor mix. I make a "magic mayo sauce" that starts with crushing a clove of garlic in a bowl. Makes the most dried out BBQ mistakes edible and rocks out asparagus like you wouldn't believe.

Salt is a cheap way to increase yumminess. Almost everything benefits (flavor wise) from salt, so the food lab can get predictable results.

 

[fuelair]

Mono-sodium glutamate is frequently added as a “flavour enhancer”. There is no evidence that actually does any harm, it merely adds to the umami taste of foods.

Pity it's used: you can get all the glutamates you need from onions, tomatoes (chopped, not passata), parmesan cheese etc, which is why they are widely used in savoury cooking. (My wife says that if onions were hit by blight, I wouldn't be able to cook. She's right.)

Why buy ready made meals? Buy a good basic cookery book and follow the recipes until you have enough confidence to break out. In the UK, one of the best IMO is Xanthe Clay "recipes to know by heart". She gives the basic recipes and then "Good things to add ... "

Incidentally, again in the UK, don't add water to a beef or lamb casserole - use Manns Brown Ale. For pork or chicken, use cider or white wine.

Cooking is fun - for me it is, and always has been, a hobby - not a chore. You learn from your mistakes - especially when you have to eat them! But don't, don't, DON'T try to follow the TV chefs' recipes - expensive disaster!

You might want to look into Elizabeth David's books if in England/related. She pretty much revamped English cooking after the war (Foyle's, not the earlier one).

 

[Orphia Nay]

Why buy ready made meals? Buy a good basic cookery book and follow the recipes until you have enough confidence to break out. In the UK, one of the best IMO is Xanthe Clay "recipes to know by heart". She gives the basic recipes and then "Good things to add ... "

You made me Google. That book sounds great!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Recipes-Know-Heart-Xanthe-Clay/dp/1845333586

 

[Anerystos]

Quote
Pity it's used: you can get all the glutamates you need from onions, tomatoes (chopped, not passata), parmesan cheese etc, which is why they are widely used in savoury cooking. (My wife says that if onions were hit by blight, I wouldn't be able to cook. She's right.)
/quote

I figured out a year ago I'm allergic to onions, garlic, chives, everything in the allium family. I've lost 15 pounds not eating rice-a-roni or pasta when the family does, and I've had to totally relearn how to cook. It sucks, because I can't eat nearly any packaged or restaurant food. Just about everything has garlic or onion in it to add depth and pervasiveness to the flavor mix. I make a "magic mayo sauce" that starts with crushing a clove of garlic in a bowl. Makes the most dried out BBQ mistakes edible and rocks out asparagus like you wouldn't believe.

Salt is a cheap way to increase yumminess. Almost everything benefits (flavor wise) from salt, so the food lab can get predictable results.

If you can't eat the alliums, why not use MSG itself? In spite of its reputation (which is based on one report) it does not cause an alergic reaction.

Incidentally, if anyone is interested in the "why" of cooking, try Peter Barham "The Science of Cooking". It's worth it for his discussion of Maillard Reactions alone, apart from the rest of it. It changed the way I cook.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

The only product with msg I used previously was bullion cubes, but now I use "soup and gravy base" or "beef goo" as my wife calls it. But msg is no substitute for alliums in cooking.

Which brings up another thought re salt in processed food, which is how we can reduce the amount of sodium in our diet. I use a small amount of several different things to add salt to cooking, like soup base and soy sauce, so the flavor is enhanced several ways with less total salt added.

 

[The Don]

If you can't eat the alliums, why not use MSG itself? In spite of its reputation (which is based on one report) it does not cause an alergic reaction.

Incidentally, if anyone is interested in the "why" of cooking, try Peter Barham "The Science of Cooking". It's worth it for his discussion of Maillard Reactions alone, apart from the rest of it. It changed the way I cook.

It's been a while since I've heard that name, he was my tutor during the second year at university. IIRC at the time he was very happy at being involved in the development of a new adhesive which allowed biscuit packets to be sealed more effectively.