I find it incredibly difficult to cut down/give up adding salt to my food

[bibbitybobbityhat]

Anyone else?

I don't have a sweet tooth at all, so practically everything I eat is savoury.

I just lean towards the taste of salt, soy sauce, marmite, msg - those are obviously my "thing".

But, y'know, I've given up smoking, I barely eat sugar, I'm working on the drinking ...

... and now I feel guilty about salt in food.

.

What to do?

Oh yes, I love salt. It does take some getting used to. After a while though your tastebuds forget how much they loved it! I'd like to see all these blimmin' tv chefs cook without salt - they love their seasoning

Stop feeling guilty. Nobody lives forever, everyone dies of something. Has your doctor told you you need to cut down on salt?

No, but it is the very work of the devil, is it not?

PILs never put a salt and pepper set on their table. So I have to eat vegetables there that have been cooked without salt and I'm not allowed to put salt on them either. Honestly, I'd sooner not bother [ungrateful emoticon].

There's nothing wrong with liking savoury foods and a little soy sauce or Marmite etc., isn't going to do you much harm. If most of what you eat is in the 'fresh home-cooked' category then you're probably not getting more than the 6g salt recommended per day. If you eat mostly processed/ready-made/preserved/smoked foods then that's when you can find you're getting a lot more salt than you really need.

Like a lot of dietary/lifestyle matters (smoking, drinking, being overweight) salt is a long-term health issue rather than a short-term one. The trouble with it is that your body gets less good at dealing with excess salt over time. Also, taste-buds get 'salt tolerant' over time meaning you need more salt in your food in order to taste it. Rather than waiting for a doctor to tell you to change your ways if you can cut back a little now it will serve you well in the long-run.

Do you like spicy food? This doesn´t have to be salty.

My mum is the same. I worry about her

There was something in the Guardian recently about it taking a month to get your tastebuds used to less salt. Here it is

Try a squirt of lime juice - it sounds mad but it does seem to bring flavour out like salt does. Works better in some things than others.

But a little salt can go a long way. 1 tsp in a large pan of boiling water can be used to par-boil the potatoes, cook the carrots/broccoli, and form the base for the gravy, in a roast dinner. Divide that among say 5 of you, and you've had probably less than a gram each.

There is one great thing you can use instead of salt without sacrificing on taste, it is called gomasio and is a mix of ground toasted sesame seeds (90%) and salt (10%). It surprisingly tastes as salty as pure salt and has a lovely nutty taste. It only takes 5 mins to make.

I heard of it in this really cool recipe newsletter I subscribed to called Tasty Diaries, written by a French mum in London. See her recipe for gomasio here:
tastydiaries.com/newtasty/flavoured-salts-and-gomasio

Subscribe to her newsletter too, I really love it. She sends every Thursday easy recipe ideas for the week ahead and fun kitchen tips. The few recipes I tried so far have always been really good.

Elsa

Unless you have a kidney proble or a specific condition that needs a low salt diet, there is zero evidence that salt is bad for you at all. Seriously, its one of those things that is repeated adnausem as fact when there is nothing to back it up. A healthy person excretes excess salt and it does no harm whatsoever, unless you are consuming huge amounts,