Salt of the earth

There may be the salt of the earth, but the salt of my kitchen is a lot different.

When I’m putting together my food storage, I buy one thing of salt (26oz) and know it will last me for 10+ years. That’s one good thing about salt. As long as it stays dry, it stays good. And even then I’ll only eventually finish it because I use it as a mouth rinse if I get a sore in my mouth and I use it to clean some laundry stains. And that’s all I use it for.

And you should see my blood pressure! 😀

So I was interested to read this article from the New York Times: The Hard Sell on Salt: Pushed to Lower Salt Use, Food Industry Pushes Back. So interested in fact, that I had to write this post to give some of my comments on it.

Making deep cuts in salt can require more expensive ingredients that can hurt sales. Companies that make low-salt pasta sauces improve the taste with vine-ripened tomatoes and fresh herbs that cost more than dried spices and lower grade tomatoes.

Imagine using ingredients that taste good actually lets you cut salt! I think I’d rather have the sauce made with real food than sauce made with cheap stuff and salt.

In speaking of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup the article says:

Chicken noodle soup has been especially vexing, he said. With only 150 calories, a single can of the condensed soup has more than a whole day’s recommended sodium for most Americans.

“It’s a very unique recipe,” Dr. Dowdie said. “Consumers of chicken noodle, they love it and they know it and they have a strong bond with it. And any slight change they will recognize.”

It is a unique recipe. It’s insanely salty! When I make my own chicken soup – chicken breasts, potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, chives, the only salt that goes in the whole big pot is the 2-3 boullioun cubes I put in (and those are plenty salty). There might be a bit in the chicken as well from the processing. But I’m certainly not puckering my lips for the last bit of soup when I make it from all the salt.

Kellogg said that lower salt guidelines were “incompatible with a palatable diet.”

I guess my diet isn’t palatable then. But it does seem like all this processed food is killing taste buds. It took me over a year after returning from Brasil where I ate home prepared meals every day, before I found American processed food “palatable” again. There’s just really something about making it at home without all the processing and added salt that really makes it taste good. Lower salt guidelines aren’t incompatible with a palatable diet, they’re incompatible with a lazy diet.

And as for this statement:

reducing salt in bread was difficult

I’ve found it quite easy actually. There is no salt in my baked goods, no increased sugar either, and I’ve only ever gotten compliments on my baking.

We don’t even have a salt shaker in our home. (Brett thinks he wants one though.) There’s more than enough salt in the food we buy that there’s no need to add any more.

So, salt of the earth, salt of my kitchen. My favorite salt is the Dead Sea bath salts Brett got me for our wedding. Now that’s some good salt. Relaxing rather than causing hypertension. 😉