For years I haven't cooked my veg. with salt, love the taste.
If I'm making a recipe, I only put a little in.
I don't add salt to the food on the plate except if it's an occasional fried thing, and then about 8 grains!
I've always found this just enough and the food has always tasted good but for the past couple of weeks, things just taste undersalted. I've thrown out 2 sets of bouillon/stock cubes because they just lack a salty zing somehow.
It could just be that UK manufacturers are taking low-salt (too?) seriously but I wondered if anyone else had had similar issues with taste? I don't want to be eating extra salt but my food that tasted great last month has suddenly become a bit blah.
I rarely use salt in my cooking and basically my tastebuds have gotten used to it. Sometimes when I eat out, because food is salted, the food will taste too salty to me.
I've also heard that you should really only add salt to your food after its cooked or you could be taking in too much sodium as the flavor of salt is muted when you cook your food.
I have found everything to be very bland lately. I haven't thought much about it but yes, I find myself adding more salt than normal. Maybe our bodies are craving the salt???
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Hmmmmm...I rarely add salt to food after I cook it. Its all that culinary training I had; to me its almost an insult if you have to add salt to food I've served! (I am such a dork!)
However, I HAVE been just dieing for things like those big hard pretzels! We ate up the last of them a few days ago. I have been searching out those babies.
I thought maybe it was hormones, but since mine are totally screwed up, it probably isn't. I never thought there could be a connection with trying to lose weight. Now I am intreguied....
Recipes I make are fine, because I'm enjoying upping and jiggling the spices, although I've just blown my head off with an avocado and oat burger I made for breakfast, when I over-did the chili flakes. Somehow it's the commercial stuff that tastes bland. Even if I succumb to a bag of crips (chips), They don't taste salty enough either. My salt levels are mostly 800mg a day or lower.
Sometimes we crave salt because we need the sodium. Sodium is an electrolyte and helps keep our body well hydrated. Athletes will use electrolytes and they are also useful when you are sick. Gatorade is a well known electrolyte drink (but full of sugar). I drink coconut water and an electrolyte powder occasionally.
Your body's natural gatorade. When you exercise/sweat lots and lots, you lose sodium and other minerals as you perspire. Those sports drinks have salt and other electrolytes (sugar does not count) to replace them. My suggestion is that your body may be telling you you need to replace your natural sodium levels.
800 and under is low. I would think that you need some salt (like others have said) I find natural sea salt (the chunky kind!) helps when my sodium is low. And I don't know if you have found this but I tend to feel wonky in the head too when it's too low *shrug* I don't know why though. I do this strange think with my chunky sea salt. I poke pieces into my brusell sprouts. lol!!!
I've never really thought about salt in that way (you body's own gatoraide lol) but I have the opposite problem of adding salt to just about everything I cook & then adding more....ugh. I think I'm eating too much of it but haven't really looked at my daily intake. Now I'll have to, if not to adjust but also out of curiosity.
Thanks for bringing this up! It's been on the back of my mind but I really haven't thinking about it even if I was stressing a little over it, if that makes sense
There's always a "ringer" variable in the mix. My doctor, who's an expert on thyroid function, mentioned to me that a lot more people are needing to supplement iodine now, because they're switching over to the natural sea salts. It's not easy to get iodine from food, and a thyroid gland starved for it will underperform (making it even harder to lose weight). There's a lot of conflict about the function of sodium in the body and how much is enough. Suffice to say, I avoid it because it makes me puff up like a scared blowfish, but as a hypothyroid patient, I have to be aware of iodine levels too. Wouldn't it be great if everything had just one answer?