Table salt in your diet?...

Chadford

I believe that sodium in the body is required for functional/good health? and that sodium can be obtained with normal foods.

What I can't seem to find out on t'internet is that adding table salt to a diet is necessary? Say for example...

1) You live in the UK (moderate climate).
2) You eat a diet, pretty much, lets just say fish, chicken. lots of green veg (no salt added).
3) Let's say you don't eat much/any so called 'processed' foods that contains salt or is processed by adding/using salt, salting, cureing, brined meats etc.

Given that do you need to add salt to the above diet to maintain a healthy constitution?

Ta.

Atavus

I can’t imagine you’d find anyone genuinely running short of sodium unless caused by some illness.

Chadford

That's pretty much what I thought, I couldn't find anything that states that you don't actually *need* to add salt to your food.

BT Bob

To my pallet, not using salt when cooking means you lose a lot of flavour.

Leaving out processed foods and assuming we're only talking about preparing and cooking "fresh" foods, I think it's almost essential to add some salt.

In your example of "lots of green veg", if you're boiling or even steaming, veg, in my experience, you need to add a small amount of salt to the water to stop any natural salts leaching out and talking taste with it.

If you'r concerned about the amount of sodium in your diet, you can always buy low or zero-sodium salt.

Chadford

I maybe should have said in my first post that I'd had a conversation with a relative recently and my view was that to maintain good health you do not need to add any salt to your food, my relative thought it was an essential ingredient for health.

However that said, I've cut back on the amount of salt I use. One thing now is that I don't usually add salt to veg when cooking. I've been very surprised how little difference it makes. I do season a little at the table but I taste first before seasoning, it seems to work.
As you suggest I generally use 'Lo-Salt' (I think it's 1/3 sodium, 2/3 potassium). It's just a shame they don't do a rock salt version, as part of the attraction of ground salt at the table is getting the slight crunch and the pop of the salty taste.



But... fish & chips, any health considerations I have go right out of the window. My chippy tea gets totally blathered in salt & vinegar. Hey It's an infrequent treat.

Atavus

Table salt is a bit over a third sodium, the rest being chloride. The low salt is a third sodium chloride and two thirds potassium chloride.

Many clean eaters do not cook with salt or add it at the table. They don’t seem to have problems with lack of sodium.

IronGiant

They are correct, but that doesn't mean you need to add it...

Greg Hook

Given the amount of salt in everything we eat, unless someone is on a very specific diet, I'm sure most people would be having more than enough of their daily salt requirement.

I do add it fairly generously on chips because you have to. I also put it very lightly over vegetables.

hyperfish

Not a fan of the salt from a tub but I do like sea salt.

busterbenny2001

I crush rock salt in a pestle and mortar to a more acceptable size lovely on a fat steak.