Salt is evil. Or is it?

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Mark Bittman recently wrote about how people talk about food in good-and-evil terms. Salt is always bad. So is sugar. Fat is always bad too. Gluten is the devil. Quinoa and spelt, on the other hand, are wonder foods. Soy used to be wonderful, but now it’s suspect. Same with sweet potatoes.

Here are some facts: Salt is a necessary nutrient. Sugar is just a carbohydrate, like many others. Fat is concentrated energy in food form, which is why we find it so appealing. Gluten is just wheat protein; some people may have a sensitivity to it, but most people really don’t. Quinoa and spelt are nice additions to the diet, but don’t cure cancer. Soy is generally fine, as are sweet potatoes.

Now go online and read the reactions from Bittman’s readers! Some of them were furious. He was telling them something contrary to their own beliefs.

Beliefs!

Now here’s a somewhat different case. Watch this video and think about it, and then continue reading:

This is “Sam Sandwich,” an animated character created by the Disney Channel. Sam teaches kids to eat healthily. There are lots of episodes, and I invite you to watch some; they’re cute, and some of them teach valuable lessons, like don’t eat candy for lunch, etc.

But what lesson did you learn from the above video?

If you’re an adult of average intelligence, you will have noticed Sam’s comment that “a pinch of salt makes food taste better, but too much is bad for you.” If you’re a child, you will hear: SALT IS BAD FOR YOU.

I heard about Sam Sandwich from a colleague, who found that her little boy wouldn’t eat anything salty anymore, because “Sam Sandwich says it isn’t good for you.” Evidently he’s a picky eater to begin with, and this has made matters even worse.

Bittman has shown us that adults are credulous enough. Sam Sandwich shows us that children are even more so.

Enough, already. Stop frightening children. And let’s have a little reasonable conversation.

If possible.

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Salt, and MSG, and lead: Joe Jackson sings "Everything Gives You Cancer"

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I read lots of different publications. I read Reader’s Digest, which is very cheerful, but is also very conservative. I also read Mother Jones, which is unashamedly liberal. I read the Atlantic, and New York Magazine, and the Financial Times . . .

 

 

Well, I tell you, it’s exhausting.

 

 

It’s especially exhausting to figure out their takes on various issues.

 

 

Salt, for example. Reader’s Digest recently excerpted an article from the New York Times (!) which showed that maybe salt isn’t as bad as we’ve been bad as we’ve been led to believe.

 

 

To be sure: any nutrient, in excess, is bad for you. But how much is too much much? We’ve been told over the last few decades that we eat too much salt, and it’s killing us: hypertension, heart disease, kidney disease.

 

 

Except maybe the research studies aren’t supportive of this.

 

 

O dear!

 

 

Monosodium glutamate? Also not necessarily a killer, according to a British book I read recently. (Of course, they said that salt was the real villain.)

 

 

And a recent article in Mother Jones found widespread lead poisoning in urban areas, which seemed to correlate to areas of elevated crime, etc.

 

 

Sing it, Joe Jackson!

 

 

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Salt

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Food has gotten very fancy. 

 

 

My mother never in her life used pure vanilla extract; imitation vanilla extract was good enough for her.  But nowadays?  If you’re not using pure vanilla extract – and Madagascar vanilla at that – you’d better just slit your throat.

 

 

(Unless, of course, you purchase fresh vanilla beans and scrape the seeds into your project.  In this case, we will grudgingly allow you to continue.)

 

 

Remember when Apollonia and I were arguing over oils, and vinegars?  Olive oil, vegetable oil, sesame oil, walnut oil, almond oil.  Balsamic vinegar, white vinegar, cider vinegar –

 

 

And now: salt.

 

 

Salt is interesting.  Mom used Morton’s exclusively: “When it rains, it pours.”  Nowadays, of course, we know that there are so many interesting Salts of the World: the grey salt they harvest on the Ile de Re in France, the pink salt from the Himalayas.

 

 

I have purchased both of these.

 

 

They both taste – mneh – like salt. 

 

 

It would be lovely to pretend that they are Ubersalzen, that they have magical flavors not possessed by other salts. 

 

 

It wouldn’t be true.  They are – um – salty.

 

 

But the Ile de Re salt is grey, and is raked up from the sand, from the ocean, by people in France!

 

 

And the Himalayan salt is up in the mountains, from an ocean that dried up over 200 million years ago! 

 

 

And it’s pink!

 

 

(Well, it might be from Pakistan.  Not really from the Himalayas.)

 

 

(And I paid $1.99 – plus tax – for two ounces of the Himalayan salt.  That’s roughly $16/pound.  Mighty steep!)

 

 

It’s not the (salty) taste nor the packaging: it’s the mental imagery.  It’s the lovely image of those people on l’Ile de Re in their funny hats, raking salt on the seashore, and the quiet chilly bed of pink! salt lying so high up in the Himalayas.

 

 

I had some pink Himalayan salt on my mashed potatoes this evening.  It was spectacular.  It was completely different from any other condiment I might have used.

 

 

Who are you to deny it?

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