Sea Salt v Table Salt

With baking my own bread, as well as baking bread for others as an Artisan baker, a question came up that made me think. Anyone who has tried to bake bread and forgotten to add the salt will know, well okay its only me that has done this. Well the bread tastes awful. It does make me wonder who tried out exactly how much salt is needed.

Well I gave a sample of a new recipe to a woman to try, and the only aspect that was not perfect for her pallet was the salt. As she does not add extra salt to her own cooking, she notices salt more than most. I too hardly add extra salt so I notice salt saturated foods much more than most people do. It is why I am often very critical of the food industry for adding extra salt to foods. It is added along with sugar to make bland cheap ingredients taste better, and in many cases have any taste at all.

But the one fact that is never said regarding salt is that if you use sea salt, as I do, you actually need 25 to 30% less salt than most recipes state to get the same flavour. Thus, when I baked the test sample for the woman, she noticed that I had failed to make that adjustment as I was using sea salt.

Therefore if people want to reduce the salt in their diet for health reasons, just changing to a good sea salt and stopping using table salt will enable you to cut your salt intake by a quarter.

Salt in Soup

While I have been busy of late, I have been keeping an observant eye on food issues. And this media story caught my eye. I personally had not previously heard of the organisation; Consensus Action on Salt and Health but I was well aware of the problems of the over use of salt in processed food.

While it does not surprise me that Soup sold in chain cafés is high in salt as these companies are doing nothing more than reheating a processed product. Yet there are often some wonderful small independent cafés out there that serve real home-made soup. And soup in general is a great healthy option. It is a shame that the manufacturers of soups should need to add so much salt, as extra salt shows that they are using inferior ingredients. Often the pre packaged soups are not cheap and some of the brands tested are premium products.

As you can get a food flask and make your own so easily, why not make your own save money and that way you will know that you are not ingesting more salt than is wise.