Health Stuff - Refined/Processed Salt

[helwen]

I don't add much salt at home, myself, but this makes for extra consideration of what to eat when on the road. Nevermind being GF or not, commercial bread in the U.S.A. is a hazard because of the sodium levels. What's interesting though is that they talk about the different kinds of salt -- the problem with refined/processed salts is they're missing all the important minerals we need in our diet.

http://www.trueactivist.com/scientists-officially-link-processed-foods-to-autoimmune-disease/

It does make me wonder if this is one of the reasons homemade bread bothered me a lot less than say, Dominoes pizza, back when I was eating bread regularly.

But now I should check the granola bars too I guess; really, I'm overdue for getting on with that anyway. I tried out a few new types recently and kept the boxes so I can write down what I like for my own recipe.

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So, then, what should I do with the salt in my cupboard, I wonder? Some is sea salt, so that's okay. Some is kosher but probably not much better in the mineral department than Morton.... thoughts?

Comments

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

save it for (wait for it...) soap making?

There are many things which need non-food salt, don't worry.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha :D Love it, thanks! I started reading about lye soap but didn't see salt an ingredient... only that when you combine the lye and the oils you're creating a salt. Too many things, not enough time... and not just the house, barn, and (mostly non-existent) garden plans either...

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

a small amount of salt makes for a harder bar of soap, so when I am using soft fats I do use some salt.

what is this about the days being just packed? Shall I tease and call you a slacker? /grin

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks!

Well, I am slacking this week! My back won't let me do otherwise. So instead I have time to think about future projects and try to plan them out :D

Hm... speaking of which, I need to find my gardening notes from before we moved...

[oakmouse]

Kosher salt actually is fairly good if you're trying to cut down on your salt intake because it has a very salty taste (has to do with the shape of the crystals) so you need to use a lot less of it to get the flavor qualities that salt adds to food. Also, my dad says it is in fact more minerally rich than average table salt.

I use it in canning (pickles), although we don't do a whole lot of that, and sometimes in baking (strewing a few grains on top of a pan of GF focaccia, having not put any salt into the dough). It also makes a good salt bowl for salt-rising bread (where you insulate the rising dough by placing the container of dough in a bowl of hot salt), which of course doesn't involve consuming the salt.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. I was wondering, because I mostly have kosher salt but the article was talking about grey and pink salts, and the researching online has been only a so-so success for me this week.

I use very little salt, in fact. But L likes to have pizza at the local pie place sometimes, and toast if we go to Elmer's for breakfast, so he gets more of the refined stuff than I do. Of course we're trying to eat at home more, and we'll have more success with that as time goes on, but his work requires dealing with some very heavy data loads sometimes, so we go to town for those jobs and use the unlimited download and faster DSL to get the job done.

[oakmouse]

I haven't really given much credibility to the various exotic salts, mainly because they're so rare that they can't possibly have been much of a factor in any human's diet, let alone in the human diet in general. Also partly because the hype about them is so... well, so Mike Adams-y. And even if I did believe the hype, the price of the damned things is prohibitive, so that rules them out no matter what I think of them.

(Nearly six years of working for John --- and thank the gods that's over --- has made me pretty jaundiced about any health claim that amounts to "this product is the!secret!of!health!" or "this Evol Foodstuff is the!sole!cause!of!all!human!disease!". If I made a list of all the products I've seen touted as the secret of health, plus all the substances I've seen blamed for every human health problem everywhere ever throughout all time, an attempt to post that list to my journal would crash LJ.)

Anyway, besides a bit of kosher salt in baking, we use regular old sea salt. Plus GF soy sauce, of course, but not too terribly much of that either. Except in the hottest part of summer we're not big salt-heads.

Oh, BTW, you mentioned bread as a salt source. FYI, GF breads tend to have much lower levels of salt than most breads. For example, the Ener-G Brown Rice Loaf that is our go-to when I don't have the spoons to bake bread is low enough in salt that one slice is only 1% of the RDA for sodium.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was wondering about the Himalayan salts -- I figured sea salt would probably do, as that made more sense. One of the points in the article was about people who don't get enough minerals in their diets through other means, like eating leafy greens, nuts, and berries.

For me personally, not too concerned on that front, although that's good to know about the GF breads being lower, for when I do have bread, because I was thinking about that...actually I was thinking of the GF pancakes at Elmer's Store, but there isn't a lot in a pancake and I rarely have pancakes anyway.

But for people who aren't GF, like Lyle and many of my friends, this seemed like something worth putting out there. The amount of salt in a 6" Subway roll was kind of horrifying, but typical of a lot of mainstream fare, I think. Even before I went GF we'd stopped buying some of the canned meals because of the sodium levels (our first attempts at emergency food stores were ramen, beefaroni, and B&M baked beans).

But if my on-the-go friends see this and it gets them to add in some veggies, berries, and unsalted nuts, and maybe cut back on the bread and pizza just a little, I'm good with that.

I have to say I am rather tired of most Americans' lack of moderation in their lifestyles -- "Don't you dare take away my driving-wherever/all-the-lights-on/twinkies/etc. away!"

[oakmouse]

Oh, definitely agree that it's worth putting out the info about bread and sodium intake; most people have no clue. Likewise, most people don't know that cheese is simply stiff with sodium, between the natural sodium content of milk (not too bad in and of itself, but if you concentrate it into cheese, boy howdy!) and the added salt during manufacture. I only mentioned the GF thing in case it was of use for you to know that.

I agree with you about Americans' culture of overconsumption, but at the same time I don't feel comfortable auditing other people's food choices. Yes, many Americans are prone to eat crappy junk, but I don't feel that anybody else has the right to tell you or me or Lyle or anyone what they should and shouldn't eat, with certain limited exceptions (such as my doctor telling me not to eat gluten or dairy, and your mom's doctor telling her how she needs to eat with kidney failure). To me, giving people freedom of choice means giving them the freedom to make bad choices as well as good ones.

Partly this is because as a fat person I have my food choices audited by total strangers on a constant basis. People sneer at me when they look in my grocery cart, even when all it contains is fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, brown rice, and chicken. A guy at a Chinese buffet we went to a couple months ago told me I had too much food on my plate when all that was on it was about a cup of fresh melon pieces and a sliced orange. What that guy did to me was completely out of line, and I don't want to be that guy for other people.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

True, people have to make their own choices -- that craziness in NYC with trying to ban sodas over 16 oz. for instance? Oy.

I hate it when strangers try to impose their views on you, like that guy at the Chinese buffet :( That's one thing I'm dreading about going to California in June, because my mom will have all sorts of helpful suggestions on how to lose weight, etc. I think if it comes up this time, I may make a joke about how it's too bad I can give some of it to her, since she's chronically underweight... but really, I don't care what she thinks of my weight, I just don't want her to talk about it.

All my numbers are fine, the problems with my knees are no longer an issue of weight so much as postural issues plus tight hips and back muscles. Now, I am in fact trying to lose weight because even with all the work I've done, it's kind of getting in the way of things I want to do, so at the least I need to re-distribute it a bit. But that's just me and what I want to do for myself.

Fortunately my vegan/vegetarian friends and non-veg friends can share a meal amicably... can't stand the obnoxious people who insist their way is best. I hope I'm not one of them -- mostly I just try to be enthusiastic in what's working. But in the sustainability discussions there's usually someone insisting we should all be vegans -- might work in Hawaii, but not so well up here in NE. Besides, if they're trying to save innocent animals' lives, they shouldn't wear petrochemical-based clothing or non-organic cotton :P

By the way, this may sound odd, but I never think of you as fat. You're a smart, capable, creative funny, and physically-active person, and on the rare occasion I may have described you to someone, I think I said you were tall and had long blond hair, with a gracious presence.


Side Note: To clarify a bit, which I should have since we've been talking about food -- my view on American's overconsumption or lack of moderation has to do with more than food, or stuff. This is just one aspect of the tendency to overdramatize life events...things like "It's terrible what fracking will do, but what choice to we have? It's this or no fuel for anything! Then what would we do?" You know, all the tendencies that have led to the current polarized state of politics, where everyone is reacting and no one is thinking. There's nothing I like better than providing other points of view on a subject.

[oakmouse]

Oh, you're definitely not one of the "my way is the only way" folks; not even close!

I agree with your points about America's overconsumption of all kinds, and total refusal to cut back and make do with less. It's so ridiculous; Europeans don't exactly live in the dark ages, and they use less than 1/3 the energy per capita that we use, so yes, you can cut back and still have a good life. When the fit hits the shan, a lot of people are going to be in very bad shape to deal with reality.

It's a good idea to draw some boundaries with your mom. Also, of course, with regard to your own decision that you want to lose weight, whatever my feelings are about weight loss diets, etc, it's your body, your life, your choice, and I'm not going to criticize you for it. (Also, looking back, I realize I've been kind of grumpy and contrarian in my replies to some of your more recent entries. Sorry --- need to watch that.)

It's interesting that you don't see me as fat; I don't know my current weight (don't own a scale, and seldom get to the mall to use the coin-op one by the ladies' room there), but last time I checked I'm just over the line into deathfatz (morbidly obese). Of course I'm also very tall for a woman, and I've been told repeatedly down through the years that I carry my weight well, or that I "don't look that fat".

It's really nice that you think I have a gracious presence --- that's a really lovely compliment!

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the support :)

And happy to pass on good thoughts and observations, especially to my friends -- I'm not known to flatter people, but rather prefer to call things as I see them.

And thank you for accepting the compliment -- not everyone can *sigh* We need more of the good stuff, maybe then it would be easier to accept.

[oakmouse]

One of the reasons I accepted the compliment is that I know you call things as you see them --- I can trust you to be honest and accurate as to your perceptions. So I don't feel what Georgette Heyer would have called "flummeried", ie fed a line of soothing BS; I feel as though yes, this is really how you see me, and that's really neat.

Yeah, we do need more of the good stuff. Society is so busy encouraging everyone to notice what's wrong with them and what ways they're not "good enough"; not a good thing at all.