Salt in Restaurant Food

[Amethyst]

Or just as a special occasion now and then, which is how we see it.

Of course when traveling, it is kind of hard to avoid restaurants unless you stay in one place...and that place has a kitchen,

Try taking a look at this book (Calorie King)...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019PUAUUK/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

You'll never eat out again (like me ).

_B

 

[Koolau]

We took the salt shaker off the table 30 years ago. The food was bland for a week and then suddenly tasted just like normal. My conclusion is that "added salt" can be easily lowered. When you are at the mercy of a restaurant, it's a crap shoot. There are a couple of steak houses we no longer frequent because they use so much salt that the steaks are unpalatable (to us.) I assume this is one of the things that's very personal and very much depends upon what you are used to. YMMV

 

[Bestwifeever]

I have always had low blood pressure but had a voracious “salt tooth” (vs sweet tooth). A couple of years ago I gave up the salt shaker for Lent. Now I rarely add salt at the table to a prepared dish although I use it in cooking if I am following a recipe that calls for it. It’s great to enjoy so many flavors that salt used to overwhelm for me, such as eggs and potatoes. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed restaurant food tasting particularly salty.

My blood pressure remains the same, low normal. DD has extremely low blood pressure that occasionally causes her to faint. She uses a lot of salt without worry.

 

[jollystomper]

I have borderline HBP but because it runs in my family I take low dose meds. The doctor recommended I moderate my salt intake. When I was younger I used to be the type that if you could not see the salt on your meal then it did not have enough salt. Now I just do not add it to any food other than home-popped popcorn. DW uses a minimal amount to cook with (and usually kosher salt) and the food still tastes great.

I think in restaurants the portion danger is greater than the salt danger. We take the attitude of 1 restaurant meal = at least 2 home cooked meals. I cannot remember that last time we ate out that we did not end up bringing close to half our meals back home with use.

 

[tmm99]

I like salt, and I haven't noticed restaurant food having too much salt, but almost all ready-made sausages and some bacon have way too much salt in them for my taste.

 

[RAE]

I suggest hanging out at different restaurants early in the morning. You will see Sysco trucks delivering the same ingredients and partially prepared foods to almost all of them.

Yep, very true. And a lot of those partially prepared foods from Sysco contain stuff that I don't want to eat, like soybean/corn oil, trans fats, too much sugar, too much salt, etc.. As a result, we don't go out very often either.

 

[W2R]

I am on a low dose of BP medication. I measure and record my BP first thing in the morning every Saturday morning, and my average for the past 6+ months has been 108 systolic, 70 diastolic so I think I am doing OK. Later in the day it goes up a little but not much.

My BP doesn't change at all in response to salt or lack of salt. It never has. I have tried both a low salt diet, and excessive salt, and it just has no effect. The low salt diet is awful IMO so I am glad that I don't have to follow it.

Places like Ruth's Chris and Outback really DO salt their food a lot, or so it seems to me. But, we don't eat at places like that when we eat out. Still, I think we probably have more salt than we might at home.

 

[harley]

Yep, very true. And a lot of those partially prepared foods from Sysco contain stuff that I don't want to eat, like soybean/corn oil, trans fats, too much sugar, too much salt, etc.. As a result, we don't go out very often either.

We have a Sysco warehouse relatively nearby, and for some reason a while back I decided we should go in and look through their warehouse store. Usually DW is the shopper/spender and I'm the anchor drag saying "we don't need that". But I have to admit she had a difficult time getting me out of there without that 20 lb. bag of breaded calamari. We never went back.

 

[Elbata]

This is my understanding and I may be wrong:

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends no more than 2300 mg of salt/day. When a label is read and it says one portion contains 25% of the RDA (recommended daily allowance), they get that number by using the high end of the RDA for salt which is 2300 mg.

For example: Let's say one serving contains 575 mg of sodium. On the can it would say that's 25% of the RDA, while it's actually over 33% of what the IOM recommends.

The actual RDA for sodium is 1500 mg/day. But statistically, only 1 out of 200 people consume 1500 mg/day or less.

The salt shaker is not the primary cause of too much salt. Restaurant food and canned/processed products are the main culprits.

 

[harley]

This is my understanding and I may be wrong:

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends no more than 2300 mg of salt/day. When a label is read and it says one portion contains 25% of the RDA (recommended daily allowance), they get that number by using the high end of the RDA for salt which is 2300 mg.

For example: Let's say one serving contains 575 mg of sodium. On the can it would say that's 25% of the RDA, while it's actually over 33% of what the IOM recommends.

The actual RDA for sodium is 1500 mg/day. But statistically, only 1 out of 200 people consume 1500 mg/day or less.

The salt shaker is not the primary cause of too much salt. Restaurant food and canned/processed products are the main culprits.

I wouldn't argue that most people get the majority of their salt from processed foods, and maybe restaurant foods. It sort of depends on where you eat. If you cook most of your meals at home (not from cans), then the sea salt grinder is probably the major culprit.

However, the assumption here is that the RDA for salt is medically correct, and I've seen plenty of evidence that it's not. From the Reason Magazine article I linked farther up in the thread:

For example, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study in August 2014 finding that people who consume less 1,500 milligrams of sodium (about 3/4ths of a teaspoon of salt) are more likely to die than people who eat between 3,000 to 6,000 milligrams of sodium per day (1.5 and 3 teaspoons of salt).

Where ever you get your salt from, be it restaurants, shakers, processed foods, salt licks, etc., you should probably try to determine how it effects you. If you've got high BP, try lowering the salt in your diet, see if it makes a difference. There doesn't seem to be any good science as to how it effects the population in general.

 

[Scuba]

I agree, but the cynical part of me thinks that more salt makes people thirsty and increases orders for drinks, which are generally a high-profit item.

I've been very fortunate as far as maintaining healthy BP. I do very little to limit my intake of sodium but my BP is at the low end of normal. I have to be careful when standing up after donating blood because if I don't wait long enough I end up on the floor and they get very excited about that. My mother, OTOH, struggled to maintain normal BP after menopause even though she was skinny, ran every day (walked 4 miles a day when running was too hard for her in her 80s) and didn't salt anything she made. She was always apologizing for how "terrible" her cooking tasted. It wasn't that bad, of course. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Great point re salty food encouraging drinking.

 

[Lsbcal]

Great point re salty food encouraging drinking.

Beer drinkers know this.

 

[W2R]

Beer drinkers know this.

We water drinkers don't care.

 

[Bestwifeever]

These pretzels are making me thirsty

 

[Lsbcal]

These pretzels are making me thirsty

For water or beer?

 

[Jerry1]

I'll weigh in on the side of salt not impacting blood pressure. It may be individual, but for me, I started going to a holistic Dr, was on BP meds and now I'm off the meds and one of my supplements is a teaspoon of salt per day. It's unrefined sea salt which provides other minerals, but I sprinkle it on everything in order to get my daily dose of salt. FWIW, I also believe in the BP gets higher with age theory. I'm 56 and I hang around 140/85 and Dr. says there's nothing to treat at that level. Glad to see the Mayo reference to 150/90 for a 60 yo. Seems to me that other things, like eating properly and losing some weight had more to do with lowering my BP than salt did to increase it or medicine did to decrease it.