Get the Salt Out (8 page)

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Learn to enjoy the taste of foods as they are,
without any added salt. If you lessen salt in your diet gradually, you’ll be amazed to find that foods you ate regularly a month or two ago suddenly seem much too salty. Even more encouraging,
you’ll find that natural foods that seemed bland before are really delicious. Studies conducted at the Monell Chemical Senses Center confirm that people’s desire for salt falls off as they use less of it.

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Explore the five tastes.
This is a tip that not only will make eating more pleasurable, but may actually improve your health as well. According to the ancient Five Element Theory of food therapy in Chinese medicine, too much of one taste can cause imbalance in the body. Most Americans overindulge the sweet and salty tastes and don’t appreciate the other equally important tastes: sour (as in a lemon); bitter (as in mustard greens); and pungent (as in a radish). Emphasize these other tastes to establish better balance in your diet and your health.

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“Fool” your taste buds into thinking salt is present
by overstimulating one of the other tastes. Jeanne Jones, a spa menu consultant and author of many low-salt cookbooks, passed this tip on to me., and it’s true. This concept explains why many people can kick the salt habit when they use sour vinegar or lemon juice liberally.

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Remember to stimulate your sense of smell
because it is closely connected to your sense of taste. In fact, besides your basic tastes, all of your other “tastes” are really smells. To demonstrate this fact, Jeanne Jones recommends that you try this test: hold your nose the next time you eat one of your favorite foods. You’ll probably be surprised how little you actually taste.

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Satisfy occasional yens for salt with small amounts of foods that have salt on the surface
(for example, salted nuts). The tongue’s sensors can distinguish the taste of salt on the surface of foods much more quickly, easily, and potently than they can pick up the taste of salt when it is mixed or cooked into foods. (This is another reason to sprinkle a small amount on your food at the table instead of mixing salt in while you cook.)

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Do not try to determine the sodium content of foods by relying on your taste buds.
The taste buds were designed to pick up the salty taste, yet most forms of sodium (like the sodium additives in many processed foods) do not taste salty. In addition, taste buds can become confused by the combination of salt and sugar in processed foods. The salty taste and the sweet taste offset each other, which gives us an inaccurate impression that these foods contain less salt and sugar than they really do.

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Taste food before you salt it (if you decide to salt it).
This is an obvious tip too many of us forget. All too often, we grab for the salt shaker without thinking about it, even before we take one bite. Replace this unhealthy habit with a “taste and decide” approach: if a food needs natural salt, by all means add a shake or two, but go easy. You always can add more later if you need to, but it’s impossible to remove salt once you’ve added it.

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Use herbs and spices imaginatively.
Most of us haven’t begun to explore the taste possibilities available to us through the creative use of these small gifts from nature. Herbs and spices may be small, but you’ll find they can produce wonderfully big flavors. When you tantalize your taste buds with everything from hot cayenne to pungent mustard, your taste buds will be happy to experience these new flavors in place of salt.