Salt's risky taste

You see this phrase in almost all cooking recipes: with salt to taste. Which means add as much salt as you like! Excessive salt consumption is a major health risk leading to dangerous condition like high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. Ready to eat meals and junk food contain excessive salt; health campaigners in the UK believe that 7000 people are dying earlier than necessary each year because they eat too much salt. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published salt-reduction targets for 2012, concentrating on bread, meat products, breakfast cereals and convenience foods.

Daily Mail

Kellogg's corn flakes have 1.75g of salt per 100g. The FSA say this should come down by 42 per cent to a maximum of 1g. Heinz tomato ketchup, which contains 2.25g of salt per 100g, will have to have no more than 1.83g by 2012. The salt-reduction target for shop-bought sandwiches is between 25 and 30 per cent, depending on the filling.

The FSA is looking for a 42 per cent reduction in the salt level in crumpets, bagels and croissants and a 9 per cent cut on bread. Salt in mature cheddar cheese, which gives it much of the flavour, should come down by just under 8 per cent. The salt maximum for burgers has been cut by 25 per cent and for sausages by 20 per cent.

However, manufacturers, including the Federation of Bakers, argue that the public is not prepared to accept the change in taste that will result from using less salt. Gordon Polson, of the Federation of Bakers, said it could be "technically impossible" for the industry to deliver further reductions "without compromising taste or quality".

Salt is consumed for taste, and used as a preservative; it has minerals like sodium, potassium, chloride and magnesium which are essential for the the body's electrical activity (transmitting nerve signals). Sodium also helps with muscle recovery in athletes and in maintaining normal heart rhythm. But too much sodium leads to hypertension, stroke, and heart attacks; excessive salt consumption is dangerous for women, because it causes loss of bone strength. The body will expel sodium that it does not need, and for every 1,000 mg of sodium it excretes in urine, 26 mg of calcium is also lost.

Luckily these essential minerals: sodium, magnesium, chloride, and potassium, are found naturally in fruits, vegetables, grains, and pulses, and we don't need "salt to taste" in our food. Moreover, refined table salt is actually stripped of magnesium and potassium, containing 99% sodium-chloride. Which is why refined salt is considered one of the "three white poisons"; the other two being refined sugar and refined flour. So its a no-brainer to drop table salt from our daily diet, and just stop eating potato crisps, burgers, pizzas. But salt consumed since childhood becomes an addictive taste, which leads to salt cravings in many people, just as women get sugar cravings.

Some salt craving, like in pregnant women is the body's demand for more sodium, or it can be sometimes due to a rare medical condition like adrenal insufficiency. But mostly salt craving is due to the taste we get for it since childhood; one way to prevent this risky taste from developing in kids is to flavor their food with lemon, herbs, or spices instead of table salt.

Adults should control their risky salt taste by using substitutes like pepper, garlic, spices, or potassium-chloride. Cheese lovers can eat Parmesan instead of processed cheese. Drinking water is essential for controlling salt levels in the body. Excessive salt can also be reduced by eating potassium-rich foods such as bananas, apricots, rhubarb, citrus fruit, potatoes, beetroot and Marmite.