Salt in diet is a sneaky thing

[MikeG]

Autocondimentors (great word) aren't being entirely illogical. If every carrot you've ever eaten tastes better to you with some salt, would it not make sense to pick up the salt pot when you are served a plate containing carrots? That's certainly my approach. There is no way I would put salt onto any form of mixed food (stews, fried rice, lasange, chilli con carne whatever.....) but if I have a meal of roast potatoes, veggies and whatever, then I am perfectly justified in adding salt (to the veggies alone) without tasting them first.

Further, as I suffer from Anosmia (no sense of smell) I tend to eat food which is spicier, sweeter or saltier than some would prefer. Otherwise, literally, a boiled potato can taste just like a cauliflower or an apple, with texture being the main way I tell food apart. I also have a very healthy blood pressure. For this reason I don't feel in the least guilty about picking up the salt and pepper pot before tasting the stuff on my plate, with the provisos I outlined earlier.

 

[Pixel42]

The restaurant world seems split on this question. Some chefs, Marco Pierre White famously was one, go absolutely ballistic if a diner asks for salt or pepper. Others take a view that as everyone has different tastes, it's a bit presumptuous of the chef to dictate matters. Heck watching Masterchef recently, even chefs and critics disagree about whether something is under/over seasoned.

Sure, but autocondimenters add the salt without bothering to taste it first. They don't check to see whether it already has enough seasoning to meet their personal taste, they just add more automatically.

 

[MikeG]

Pixel.........some foods are never salted, anywhere, in any circumstances. As I said, veggies, be they steamed, boiled or microwaved, aren't seasoned. If you know you like your veggies salted, it is a waste of time tasting them first, as you know full well that they won't be seasoned.

 

[Pixel42]

Pixel.........some foods are never salted, anywhere, in any circumstances. As I said, veggies, be they steamed, boiled or microwaved, aren't seasoned. If you know you like your veggies salted, it is a waste of time tasting them first, as you know full well that they won't be seasoned.

OK, I'll allow you that exception, as it seems so important to you. But what I've observed is people automatically adding salt to soup, meat dishes - every flipping thing - without bothering to taste it first. That's autocondimenting.

 

[MikeG]

....and there I agree with you completely. Anything that conceivably might have seasoning on or in it I would never just automatically add salt.

 

[Roboramma]

OK, I'll allow you that exception, as it seems so important to you. But what I've observed is people automatically adding salt to soup, meat dishes - every flipping thing - without bothering to taste it first. That's autocondimenting.

If you eat a lot of salt you will find food tastes less salty. People who remove salt from their diets will, after a while, find that a specific saltiness of food tastes more salty than it used to.

Given that different people eat different amounts of salt, some will find that food tastes less salty than others. In that case there are likely people who have enough salt in their diets that food served at restaurants is never salty enough for their tastes, in which case they don't need to taste it first to know.

If every soup you eat tastes better (to you) with salt added, it's logical to add salt to it before tasting.

I actually called my brother out on adding salt to his soup without tasting it first once, and he put it this way "If I taste the soup first I have 1 spoonful of soup that will very likely be not salty enough. If I salt the soup first and it turns out that I was wrong and it's now too salty I will have a bowlful of soup that is too salty. The total number of not-salty-enough spoonfuls of soup that I would consume if I tasted first outnumber the total number of too-salty spoonfuls of soup that I consume by salting before tasting"*.

*In spite of the quotation marks here, this is my paraphrasing based on a twenty-some year old memory.

 

[Pixel42]

He would rather risk having to eat a whole bowl of too salty soup than risk having to eat a tiny amount (it doesn't need to be a whole spoonful) of not salty enough soup?

 

[Tony99]

I stopped adding salt at the table and when cooking years ago, it took a few weeks to get used to it but then it was fine.

Then there are the autocondimenters (I believe the term was coined by Terry Pratchett) - people who add salt to whatever is put in front of them without even tasting it first to see if it needs it. I've seen people doing it when eating in good restaurants, which seems an insult to the chef. I'm sure if he/she thought it needed more seasoning they would have added it, I'll defer to their expertise on the matter and eat the dish they prepared as they intended it to be eaten.

Absolutely agree with you. In many of the higher quality/chef run restaurants I've been to, condiments are not present on the table. Requesting salt or pepper should be met with a scowl. Part of what you pay for is eating the food as the chef intended.

Most of my seasoning is done during cooking and rarely at the table unless I've messed something up. I cook mostly Asian at home and get plenty of salt/flavor from the various spices, soy, fish sauce, Magie seasoning, lime etc.

 

[Roboramma]

He would rather risk having to eat a whole bowl of too salty soup than risk having to eat a tiny amount (it doesn't need to be a whole spoonful) of not salty enough soup?

Looked at over the course of his whole life he'd rather eat 100 spoonfuls (or whatever) of too salty soup than 10,000 spoonfuls of not salty enough soup.

Of course you're right that maybe he doesn't need to eat a whole spoonful of soup to taste it. On the other hand if he over salts the soup he also doesn't need to finish the bowl if he's not enjoying it.

 

[MikeG]

.......In many of the higher quality/chef run restaurants I've been to, condiments are not present on the table. Requesting salt or pepper should be met with a scowl. Part of what you pay for is eating the food as the chef intended........

How about commenting on people with my condition then, who don't taste food at all the same way as you (presumably) do. I can't smell the difference between wine and water. I generally can't taste the difference between orange and lemon. Celery and apple are indistinguishable. All meat tastes exactly the same. For people like me, stronger tasting food, be it sweeter, or spicier ("hotter"), or saltier are the best we can hope for. So, do we have to just lump it? Tough, we get to sneer at you just because you asked for salt and pepper.......

You see, ALL of what I paid for is enjoying the company as they enjoy their food, enjoying the location, and getting something to eat that I can taste. Please don't make my evening miserable by being confrontational over the salt and pepper, as the fancy food you are charging me a fortune to eat tastes no better to me than the stuff we cook at home every day.

 

[Darat]

If you eat a lot of salt you will find food tastes less salty. People who remove salt from their diets will, after a while, find that a specific saltiness of food tastes more salty than it used to.


...snip..

Absolutely this - I never add salt to meals or when I am cooking (OK one weakness I do on fish and chips but that's not an everyday meal, and I will season with salt and pepper if I'm preparing a meal for others). There is more than enough salt in most foods that they still have a tang of salt in them to my taste buds and why add pepper at all?. It does mean I find commercial food incredibly salty and peppery.

The idea that all food has to be "seasoned" is a strange one to me (excusing freaks of nature like Mike ) and I wonder how it started given the historically high price of salt and pepper. Not quite as strange as how it seems everyone wants to eat neurotoxins these days!

 

[William Parcher]

A couple of weeks ago I saw for sale a tiny bottle that clips to your keyring or beltloop for the purpose of carrying hot sauce. I think it's a Huy Fong Sriracha brand.

And I know a guy who is a black pepper snob. He carries a tiny pepper mill in a shirt pocket so that he can have his own particular black pepper wherever he goes.

I would even imagine people as salt snobs carrying a little mill for their fancy pink Himalayan salt.

 

[Capsid]

Listen to this podcast. Salt is bad for you and leads to high blood pressures; we need very little ever sine we left the marine environment. We have evolved not to lose our saltiness. Adding salt to food conditions you to want more.

The food we eat is the greatest cause of death and illness worldwide. The main culprits - salt, sugar and fat - are now so embedded in our diet, in the form of processed foods, that most of us consume far too much.
Yet Professor Graham MacGregor doesn't believe it's up to us to reverse this situation. It's up to the food industry, he says, who manufacture the processed foods, to take the 'rubbish' out.
Now Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine, Graham MacGregor has spent much of his career campaigning tirelessly to persuade the food industry to do just that - to reduce these demons in our diet - firstly salt, and now sugar.
And he's had remarkable success. As a nation we now eat thirty thousand tonnes less salt each year than we did fifteen years ago, saving the NHS a staggering £1.5 billion per year.
Blood pressure lies at the heart of this huge saving and, as Graham explains to Jim al-Khalili, blood pressure is not a natural consequence of ageing. High blood pressure is simply a consequence of too much salt.

He's published plenty too

 

[Capsid]

Duplicate post

 

[Dr. Keith]

I have to assume double posting is a symptom of salt deprivation.

 

[Capsid]

I have to assume double posting is a symptom of salt deprivation.

Lol, indeed it must be or else the beer I'm drinking to go with the bag of low salt crisps!

 

[Dr. Keith]

Lol, indeed it must be or else the beer I'm drinking to go with the bag of crisps!

No, beer is perfect. The only class of food better for the human body is Whisky. Or bacon. I get those two mixed up. Liberal use of both seems to solve most issues.

 

[Ziggurat]

Usually the medical recommendation is to reduce sodium, not just salt.

That recommendation may not be correct. The effects of salt on your body are not actually well understood, and recent evidence has complicated the picture considerably.

https://www.sciencealert.com/new-study-says-forget-everything-you-think-you-know-about-salt

 

[3point14]

I would recommend a light sprinkling of Resiniferatoxin for the best flavour results.

 

[fuelair]

The restaurant world seems split on this question. Some chefs, Marco Pierre White famously was one, go absolutely ballistic if a diner asks for salt or pepper. Others take a view that as everyone has different tastes, it's a bit presumptuous of the chef to dictate matters. Heck watching Masterchef recently, even chefs and critics disagree about whether something is under/over seasoned.

A friend who trained as a chef says that the reason why high end restaurant food tastes good is the high level of salt and butter compared to home cooks. Personally I tend to find restaurant food over-salted and under-peppered but that's just me.

I always fix underpeppered and rarely find overpeppered, but then I love the tastes of peppers. Salt I have to be good about - cardiac thing!!!