Salt and Spices and MSG

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting article here.

There is some profanity which is in vogue and completely unnecessary but this is still a good read.

The organic produce discussion is good. We have a lot of small farmers here who do not use pesticides but won't go to the trouble or expense of being certified.

Spread the word

      

  

  

• This topic was modified 7 years ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[RiversideLen]

I wasn't going to read it until I saw that it has profanity so I rushed right to it. [smiley face, that's a joke]

Interesting article, I enjoyed it.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--thanks for posting this article.

[Rascals1]

Interesting, thanks for posting it.

[Italiancook]

I agree, Aaron -- thanks for posting this article. I knew where salt comes from, but with so many cooking shows emphasizing sea salt, I never put it together.

[Mike Nolan]

I both disagree and agree with the information on salt. Yes, all salt is, ultimately, sea salt, and, no, there isn't a type of colored salt that will reduce your sodium consumption (unless it's a non-sodium based salt replacement, and those are not without their own medical risks.)

But the trace minerals in colored salts (which are also generally mineral salts, for the chemically inclined) can make a taste difference, and that may cause you to use a little less salt.

Moreover, salt grinder salt generally doesn't have iodine in it. You need SOME iodine in your diet, you don't need it in every salt you consume. I use iodized salt for cooking and baking, but I know some bakers who only use non-iodized salt (usually kosher salt) for baking, claiming they can taste the bitterness of iodine.

I'm also a believer in slightly under-salting in the kitchen and salting to taste at the table. There are chefs who are insulted if you add salt to their foods, I'm not one of them.

If most of the salt you consume comes from packaged foods, you could conceivably get too little iodine, though I've never heard of it happening, and cases of goiters are quite rare in the USA, so few people here are suffering from iodine deficiency. That was not true when I was growing up 60 years ago in rural NW Illinois, I remember several farmers coming in to my grandfather's drug store with big goiters under their chin.

I completely agree with the part about spices and dried herbs not growing old very fast, the stuff about throwing out your spices after 6 or 12 months is IMHO designed to sell more product. However, if your vanilla bean dries out, you won't be able to get as much vanilla flavor out of it.

One of the things that they did at the Chocolate Academy was they collected 'used' vanilla bean pods, after they were boiled in milk, for example, and would dry them out and grind them up. I haven't had occasion to use a vanilla bean since I took the course, but I can see the virtue in doing that, vanilla beans are EXPENSIVE!

[aaronatthedoublef]

I'm almost at the point where I will switch back to regular granulated salt for baking. The pastry chefs/bakers I've worked for used kosher salt but as Mike has pointed out (and I think Kid Pizza too) sometimes that doesn't completely dissolve in baked goods.

Any reason to not add salt to my wet ingredients instead of my dry?

And Mike is spot on about salting. I stopped watching Top Chef because of their craziness about proper salting. Here we are making food for several hundred people with widely varying palates and the food is supposed to be seasoned to everyone's individual tastes.

Most baking books I have suggest things to do with vanilla beans after you've used them for their primary purpose. Another one is to put them in sugar and make vanilla sugar.

[cwcdesign]

I finally had a chance to read the article. It's a good one. I mainly use kosher salt but in the proportions the recipe calls for, i.e., if a recipe says 1 teaspoon salt, I use 1 teaspoon kosher salt. I think you're "supposed" to use 1½-2 times the amount of kosher salt to regular salt. I use it because I like it. I've also tried to work hard and not putting too much salt in when I cook and, like Mike, add more at the table. That's because I like more salt than most others.

I also thought it was interesting that different harvests of cinnamon would be different shades - that's good to know. And, I think that my mom used to gave MSG on the spice shelf.

[BakerAunt]

What my mother had was Accent in a red and white container. After the MSG uproar, she threw it away and never bought any more. It's place was taken by Lawry's Seasoned Salt, which is still my seasoning of choice for Chex Party Mix, along with Lee and Perrin's Worcestershire sauce.

[Mike Nolan]

How much kosher salt to use to replace table salt depends upon the brand of kosher salt you have, some brands have larger crystal sizes than other, which means a teaspoon of it weighs less because there's more air.

Morton specifically recommends against using kosher salt in baking, because it might not dissolve/disperse properly in the dough. Putting it in the liquid might mitigate that.

[RiversideLen]

I always use table salt in baking and generally use kosher salt in cooking. I always go easy on salt, though. If a bread recipe calls for a teaspoon and a half I use a teaspoon. High blood pressure runs in my family but I don't have it, I like to think because I go easy on the salt.

[Mike Nolan]

The relationship between salt and high blood pressure may not be as strong as medical researchers first thought, that's just one of the things that the experts may have gotten wrong, like saying that margarine is better for you than butter.

However, I think there are solid culinary reasons for cutting back on salt, even if the medical benefits may be a bit more tenuous.

[BakerAunt]

I wish that they would figure out how to design food studies so that we would get useful advice. I deal with a facial pain issue, and I did notice a connection between its flaring after eating particularly salty food. I had eaten out two days in a row, and I found the food overly salty at both places.

My husband's family has high blood pressure, but it is impossible to get an accurate reading for him, as he only has to see a blood pressure cup, and it goes up!

I read that cinnamon is supposed to help with high blood pressure. My husband must have read it also because he has taken to sprinkling cinnamon liberally on his oatmeal every morning. I do not know how good the science is on it, but we like cinnamon.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

Cinnamon is also supposed to have an impact on blood sugar, but the research on that is pretty thin. My wife thinks cinnamon by itself has no impact, but it may work better if combined with other supplements, I forget which ones she's taking.

As someone with training in both hard and social science research methods, it is VERY difficult to do a study of food effects unless you can control someone's diet 100% for weeks at a time.

My 5th grade teacher use to tell a story about some people she knew who were in a controlled dietary study during the Depression. After crying at night over pictures of food (in order to generate enough saliva for testing), one of them ate ONE peanut and was kicked out of the study!

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Mike Nolan.

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