Large amounts of sodium in prepared foods

[Shalmanese]

You keep hearing stories about certain canned foods have ungodly amounts of sodium in them and how they should be avoided in favor of more healthy alternatives but this doesn't really make sense for me. The sodium in food primarily comes from salt. If I add "excess sodium" to a dish, it doesn't taste better, it just tastes oversalted. Even with a tweaking of all the other flavor components, it doesn't really rein in the oversalting, just pushes the other tastes higher as well.

In my experience, food has an optimum salting quantity & there's not much range on either side. How is it that prepared foods can be that much more high sodium than their home made equivalents?

[Tri2Cook]

Because the companies don't care if canned foods are optimally salted. Their sales angle is convenience and enough people want that convenience that they'll accept and eventually learn to like whatever's in the package. Once you're eating it enough to actually like it, it's no longer oversalted for you. It moves up the chart to "supposed to taste like that". The same learned behavior applies to all kinds of convenience items. Many, many people prefer cake mix cakes over made-from-scratch because it tastes like what they're used to. I hated diet drinks but I started drinking them anyway in an attempt to get my weight down a few more pounds for some bike races I was doing a few summers back. I kept drinking them until I eventually actually liked them. Now the regular stuff tastes too syrupy to me and I still drink the diet stuff even though I'm no longer racing. You can get used to almost anything.

[nhamilto]

The short answer is that in most of these prepared foods (ie the ones with a directly comparable home version) the home version has an approximately equivalent sodium content. The home just doesn't have its sodium content conveniently printed on its packaging.

The difference (if any) comes in where the commercial product has no real homemade equivalent. For example Doritos corn chips, instant ramen noodles etc.

[paulraphael]

Maybe in some homes, but I think a lot of these commercial foods are just oversalted, plain and simple. Part of it is that people who eat a lot of fast food and packaged food get desensitized and think it tastes normal. But the root cause, I suspect, is that salt is cheap, and an abundance of it helps distract from the lack of other flavors.

Case in point is commercially packaged stock. Even the "low sodium" varieties have a ton of salt (consider that the optimum amount of salt in stock is none). Before i made my own stock I tried several brands to see if any could be used to make reduction sauces. The answer was no; all resulted in brine. I would use the better low sodium stocks as a partial foundation for soups; the regular stocks I find inedible.

And for what it's worth, I feel that I use a lot of salt in my cooking. I don't even think I make any desserts without salt.

Edited December 21, 2009 by paulraphael (log)

[Shalmanese]

The short answer is that in most of these prepared foods (ie the ones with a directly comparable home version) the home version has an approximately equivalent sodium content. The home just doesn't have its sodium content conveniently printed on its packaging.

That's what I thought.

Because the companies don't care if canned foods are optimally salted.

Why would companies oversalt a product if they could just optimally salt it. It's not rocket science.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Why would companies oversalt a product if they could just optimally salt it. It's not rocket science.

I suspect that these products are inherently bland, because they're not made with interesting ingredients, so they substitute salt for other flavors, and they probably test them and determine that they sell better that way.

I don't think it is necessarily the case that home cooked food has the same amount of salt as processed food, because in the more egregious examples, where the amount of sodium (which may also come from MSG and elsewhere) is converted into more familiar units like "teaspoons of salt per serving," the numbers often sound absurd, and anyone who cooks would be aware that they never use these amounts in food they make themselves.

Here's the CSPI page on salt with some figures that have been published recently--

http://www.cspinet.org/salt/

[Edward J]

Interesting topic.

Why salt in food? Better shelf life for one, I guess, I also suspect that because most food is sold by weight, and as salt does weigh a bit, it makes for a practical addition.

However I must proclaim my ignorance in interpreting the labeling protocol. I amuse/scare myself by looking at the labels on packaged "deli meats" at the local supermarket. Now take for instance "Ham", some varities list "sodium" as 25% and some varities as much as 38%.

Does this mean that over 1/3 of the entire wieght of said "ham" is salt????????

I've also notice that this supermarket, for an aprox. 2 mth trial period carried ONLY "Flavour enhanced pork" which is plain fresh pork "pumped" (vacuum tumbled) with a 12% "protein solution". Salt, I assume. I was relieved to see that after the trial period the store reverted back to plain old pork--not so for a sister location though....

Scary business........

[paulraphael]

I suspect that these products are inherently bland, because they're not made with interesting ingredients...

Yup. And I suspect that what you're calling "interesting ingredients" companies like Campbells and Swanson call "expensive ingredients."

[paulraphael]

Why salt in food? Better shelf life for one, I guess, I also suspect that because most food is sold by weight, and as salt does weigh a bit, it makes for a practical addition.

Well, in most cases we're talking about canned, frozen, or dehydrated products, so shelf life doesn't come from the salt. And I don't think it's weight. Even the saltiest of foods are only a few percent salt by weight. The weight comes from water.

Now take for instance "Ham", some varities list "sodium" as 25% and some varities as much as 38%.

Does this mean that over 1/3 of the entire wieght of said "ham" is salt????????

Luckily no ... that's 38% your recommended daily allowance. Still it's a lot!

I've also notice that this supermarket, for an aprox. 2 mth trial period carried ONLY "Flavour enhanced pork" which is plain fresh pork "pumped" (vacuum tumbled) with a 12% "protein solution". Salt, I assume.

Salt, and mystery protein, but mostly water. Lots of lower end deli meats are pumped full of some variety of brine ... it raises the weight for cheap, and gives a vague illusion of juiciness. If you ever see something labelled "ham and water product," it means they've exceded the legal added water limits of plain ham.

[Mallet]

I've certainly noticed at home that if I cut corners on something like a soup (like not using a stock for the base), I end up having to add much more salt to make the end product palatable. Generally, I think more flavourful products need less salt to bring the whole dish into balance.

[Chris Amirault]

I've often wondered if there was a relationship between the perceived saltiness of certain foods and their age, or perhaps level of preparedness. I'm a bit sick and foggy, so let me try to explain.

When I make, say, a curry, soup, or pasta sauce and have leftovers, I've noticed that the second reheating requires additional salt. Given that the sodium level remains the same from stove to fridge back to stove, this change in saltiness has made me wonder whether or not the sodium is somehow "absorbed" or something. If that's the case, then prepared foods might require higher levels of sodium to achieve a the same level of saltiness.

Is this just a bunch of malarkey, or does someone else have this sense too?

[Alcuin]

I've often wondered if there was a relationship between the perceived saltiness of certain foods and their age, or perhaps level of preparedness. I'm a bit sick and foggy, so let me try to explain.

When I make, say, a curry, soup, or pasta sauce and have leftovers, I've noticed that the second reheating requires additional salt. Given that the sodium level remains the same from stove to fridge back to stove, this change in saltiness has made me wonder whether or not the sodium is somehow "absorbed" or something. If that's the case, then prepared foods might require higher levels of sodium to achieve a the same level of saltiness.

Is this just a bunch of malarkey, or does someone else have this sense too?

I can't say whether it's true or not, but I've had this sense especially with things like quickly cooked tomato sauces. I don't usually feel the need to add more salt to, say, braised beef (after I've seasoned the sauce and reheated the next day) so I wonder if it's because the flavors I expect to find are dulled since the tomato sauce depends on brightness and freshness so I add more salt to compensate. Salting to compensate for lacking a depth of flavor seems to be what's going on here. Cold food like left over cold roast or steak needs lots of salt, even if I've eaten it the night before with less salt because when it's hot and in the context of a full meal with a diversity of flavors and textures it doesn't need as much.

The dullness or just the monolithic flavor of most canned and packaged food needs that salt to compensate for a lack of freshness or complexity. I do wonder how much sodium I use when I make potato chips or beef stew compared to their packaged or canned equivalents--perhaps a controlled comparison might be in order...

[OliverB]

Chris, I think it's just that over night all the salt was able to level out all over, including seeping into the what evers in your soup, so if you taste the liquid part it won't be as salty as the day before, nor will the solid pieces taste salty enough, as the salt got diluted. So, yes, the salt got absorbed in a way, or evenly distributed, and it needs an other kick to bring it back up to taste.

This should not happen with a well blended smooth soup though, or does it? Maybe. But I'm sure it's all just because osmosis and all kinds of other processes leveled things out over night. Including the tastes of the ingredients, which is why some of these things taste better the next day. Or even the day after that etc.

And that might also be the reason that premade stuff has more salt, as it has time to sit for weeks or months to even out (and become a mush that tastes exactly the same all over, no matter what part you have in your mouth).

[Paul Kierstead]

Cold food like left over cold roast or steak needs lots of salt, even if I've eaten it the night before with less salt because when it's hot and in the context of a full meal with a diversity of flavors and textures it doesn't need as much.

I often see instructions along the line of "if served cold, this should be seasoned more strongly" or "this is served cold, so season assertively". I notice this especially with turkey or chicken, where the cut I ate the night before (hot) didn't get any added salt at the table, but now requires a good solid dash. However, if it is heated, I find it still doesn't need the extra salt, so I think it is more to do with cold food then with age, so it wouldn't explain processed foods which are heated.

[Alcuin]

Cold food like left over cold roast or steak needs lots of salt, even if I've eaten it the night before with less salt because when it's hot and in the context of a full meal with a diversity of flavors and textures it doesn't need as much.

I often see instructions along the line of "if served cold, this should be seasoned more strongly" or "this is served cold, so season assertively". I notice this especially with turkey or chicken, where the cut I ate the night before (hot) didn't get any added salt at the table, but now requires a good solid dash. However, if it is heated, I find it still doesn't need the extra salt, so I think it is more to do with cold food then with age, so it wouldn't explain processed foods which are heated.

That's true, but if cold meat needs more salt to compensate for its more muted flavor, on analogy wouldn't hot processed foods like a can of soup or something that has muted, dull flavors that are one-note also compensate for that with more salt? I think it's true that you can use somewhat (though I'm not sure how much) less salt when there are a diversity of well defined (because well crafted) flavors and textures in the mix. My claim is that a stew with tender but not mushy meat, a rich sauce, and properly cooked vegetables might need less salt than a canned version, no matter how hot.

edited for grammar

Edited December 21, 2009 by Alcuin (log)

[paulraphael]

Foods eaten cold just need more seasoning because our perception is duller at low temps. Heat up well seasoned cold cuts and they'll be overseasoned.

[Shalmanese]

Wha? Soup that is perfectly seasoned when warm tastes oversalted when eaten at fridge temperature. Heating it back up returns it to being correctly seasoned. Am I the only one this happens to?

[paulraphael]

Wha? Soup that is perfectly seasoned when warm tastes oversalted when eaten at fridge temperature. Heating it back up returns it to being correctly seasoned. Am I the only one this happens to?

I've never experienced that ... but there aren't any soups that I eat both cold and hot, so I don't know. I'm thinking of coldcuts ... garde manger stuff. Everything that was seasoned to perfection for serving hot needs a bunch more seasoning (especially salt) when it's recycled for cold consumption. And then you really don't want to serve it hot again.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I agree with Paul, but I could imagine there might be some particular soup or other dish where salt becomes more predominant than other flavors when cold, so maybe not more salty in an absolute sense (if that even means anything), but more salty relative to other flavors when cold.

[Wholemeal Crank]

Not all the sodium in packaged foods comes from salt aka sodium chloride, cf monosodium glutamate. Also, I suspect a lot of baked goods use more sodium-rich leavenings than home versions. There are also many preservatives that are sodium this and sodium that, although most of those are used in tiny quantities. And lots of packaged foods are oversweetened, with lots more sugars than homemade equivalents, and that makes the oversalting more "tolerable".

[paulraphael]

Good point about MSG and leavening.

Though I wonder if either of these ever contributes a substantial portion of the sodium. What kinds of concentrations do you see with MSG?

Edited December 23, 2009 by paulraphael (log)