Recently I’ve been confronted by a wave of “health reports” decrying America’s dangerously excessive salt intake. (Long story short: Salt’s already in everything and then we add it to everything and our HEARTS EXPLODE.) These reports were often linked to other health reports supplying tips for how to reduce one’s salt intake. I enjoy not having my heart explode as much as the next person, so I checked out CNN’s guide to Defeating Sneaky Salt and found sentences like these:
Spice is awfully nice when you want to amp up the flavor. Tuck the salt container in the back of the cupboard so you have to work for it, and bring nutmeg, celery seed, pepper, cumin, paprika, allspice, anise to the fore.
Sigh.
In an act of compromise, I purchased a container of Mrs. Dash. It wasn’t easy. Salt is dangerous and cool, like Nico, and Mrs. Dash is sensible and supportive, like Natalie, and I was sure I would hate Mrs. Dash’s fucking guts.
However, yesterday I experimented with preparing foods that, for me, are among the most demanding of salt (scrambled eggs, steamed broccoli), using only Mrs. Dash and it was not horrible. To my surprise, eggs and Mrs. Dash get along perfectly fine, but unsalted broccoli was a bummer and Mrs. Dash didn’t help. (Also, may I just point out that salt-free seasoning blends can apparently get married but I CAN’T?)
So tell me: WHAT ARE YOU USING INSTEAD OF SALT??
Spike!
BACON GREEEASE!
Stevia. As far as I know there are zero bad effects from shooting this shit into my veins.
I season my dinners with useless, AARP-tilted blog posts.
meth
I use other salts.
http://www.atthemeadow.com
Dried-up monkey eyeballs!
Semen.
msg. yum!
The tears of a thousand weeping orphans. Wait, nevermind- those totally have salt in them.
David,
Don’t give up.
Try lemon. It’s especially good on vegetables.
DON’T GIVE UP, DAVID.
OH GOD, HE’S NOT BREATHING.
QUICK, GET ME A LEMON.
Jesus…. you do know that the overabundance of salt in a typical American’s diet isn’t due to seasoning food at home, it’s due to the horrific amount of junk food they stuff in their fat mouths. I’m so done with this misdirected education. There’s NOTHING wrong with salt! Just like there’s nothing wrong with HFCS. It’s an issue because these cheap flavor enhancers are in EVERY processed food you can shake a stick at. Simple fix: stop eating crap. Eat real food. Done. Fixed. You’re welcome.
@micacle ninmmie: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! YOU’RE A GODDAMNED GENIUS! WHY HASN’T ANYONE THOUGHT TO STOP EATING JUNK FOOD BEFORE YOU?!!? PATENT THAT SHIT AND YOU’RE GONNA WIN A NOBLE PIECE PRICE!!!
Thanks, Miracle Ninnie.
In all seriousness, I stopped using salt as soon as started finding toenail clippings in WSH’s trash.
Salt.
Nothing. try it. Salt isn’t a flavor enhancer, it’s a mask. I’m salt free for 15 years…and I look mahhhhhvelous.
Salt absolutely IS a flavor enhancer. It increases the volatility of some good-tasting flavor compounds and suppresses bitter tastes.
If people salted their food to taste at home and THAT was the source of the majority of the salt in their diets, we wouldn’t have an excess sodium problem. There’s nothing wrong with that amount of salt. There IS something wrong with the amount of salt in processed foods.
Go do some hard work or take a sauna. Sweat a lot every day. If you’re not suffering from crazy high blood pressure or something, you can salt the hell outta your food if you sweat hard.
“Salt is dangerous and cool, like Nico, and Mrs. Dash is sensible and supportive, like Natalie, and I was sure I would hate Mrs. Dash’s fucking guts.”
Now what can we do about *clever* writing like this?
Cooking skill.
If you wish to go salt free than certainly spices are the way to go. However i wish to point out that Sea salt (or Mineral salt as it is some times incorrectly described) is a whole different animal from plain table salt and it actually has heath benefits.