Human dietary consumption is a major market for salt.
Salt serves many purposes (read "All About Salt"). Although we are still learning about taste perception ( 1 2 ), humans and other animals have an inherent taste ( 1 2 ) for this essential nutrient. Salt is the world's oldest known food additive and no decent kitchen would be without salt. People use many types of sodium chloride in food processing, cooking (see pg 640 ff) or at the table -- at home or in restaurants. Each makes its unique contribution. Besides contributing its own basic "salty" taste, salt has many benefits. It brings out natural flavors and makes foods acceptable, protects food safety by retarding the growth of spoilage microorganisms, gives proper texture to processed foods, serves as a control agent to regulate the rate of fermentation in food processing strengthens gluten in bread, provides the color, aroma and appearance consumers expect and is used to create the gel necessary to process meats and sausages. As a result, more heavily processed foods usually contain more sodium and salt. Many countries' food labeling regulations include sodium. The world's great chefs ( 1 2 3 ) appreciate salt's many culinary benefits, including surprising applications like salt in desserts. In recent years, food editors and salt aficionados have frequently extolled the virtues of the wide variety of salts available for cooking and table use; there are too many to keep updating, but here are a couple examples ( 1 2 ), one asking "When did salt become hip?" Increasingly, restaurateurs use salt in promoting themselves; fancy outlets feature "selmeliers."
Salt should be part of every family's food storage program. And, there are special tips in using salt in the kitchen.
A frequent question is "How much sodium is in a teaspoon of salt?" but, beyond nutrition, people use sodium chloride for several necessary functions in food processing and cooking, including:
Preservative: Salt preserves foods by creating a hostile environment for certain microorganisms. Within foods, salt brine dehydrates bacterial cells, alters osmotic pressure and inhibits bacterial growth and subsequent spoilage. Salting fish made long-range explorations possible in the age of sailing ships.
Texture Aid: Salt strengthens gluten in bread dough, providing uniform grain, texture and dough strength. With salt present, gluten holds more water and carbon dioxide, allowing the dough to expand without tearing. Salt improves the tenderness in cured meats such as ham by promoting the binding of water by protein. It also gives a smooth, firm texture to processed meats. Salt develops the characteristic rind hardness in cheese and helps produce the desirable, even consistency in cheese and other foods such as sauerkraut.
Binder: Salt helps extract the proteins in processed and formed meats, providing binding strength between adjacent pieces of meat. Water binding properties are increased and, as a result, cooking losses are reduced. Salt increases the solubility of muscle proteins in water. In sausage making, stable emulsions are formed when the salt-soluble protein solutions coat the finely-formed globules of fat, providing a binding gel consisting of meat, fat and moisture.
Fermentation Control: In baked products, salt controls fermentation by retarding and controlling the rate of fermentation, important in making a uniform product. During pickle making, salt brine is gradually increased in concentration, reducing the fermentation rate as the process proceeds to completion. Salt is also used to control fermentation in making cheese, sauerkraut and summer sausage.
Color Developer: Salt promotes the development of color in ham, bacon, hotdogs and sauerkraut. Used with sugar and nitrate or nitrite, salt produces a color in processed meats which consumers find appealing. Salt enhances the golden color in bread crust by reducing sugar destruction in the dough and increasing carmelization.
Further information can be obtained from the Salt Institute, Institute of Food Technologists, National Food Processors Association, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Food Marketing Institute, National Restaurant Association, American Dietetic Assocation, International Food Information Council, Snack Food Association, and Monell Chemical Senses Center. Health Canada has an excellent Food Guide and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has a useful food guide pyramid which discuss using foods together for healthy diets. This blogger explains the importance of granule size to cooks. The Culinary Institute's Professional Chef counts more than 400 references to salt, indicative of its vital role in quality food preparation. Finally, there are Web sites which explain various industries' use of salt for such functions as smoking and curing meats ( 1 2 ) or cheese-making. For do-it-yourself food processors, Morton Salt publishes a booklet on how to butcher pork ( 1 2 3 4 ). Note our disclaimer.
Salt is a gustatory delight. Search any website of quality recipes ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 ) and you'll find most items have salt. Check out online culinary libraries like Chef2Chef. Newspaper food sections, increasingly, are running features on using salt, which almost always have collected recipes included. Or search some favorites collected below (Note the amounts of salt are those used in preparation, not necessarily to be ingested):
Want to provide us with the URL of your favorite recipe(s) featuring salt? We'd love to consider enriching our links so others can enjoy what you've found. Here's an example, "The World of Spices."
If you'd like salt-related information delivered automatically via a
newsreader, you can subscribe to our Salt
Institute NewsCentral service or add any of our
feeds to your
newsreader.
[About Salt Institute] [About salt] [About the salt industry] [News] [SI Member Business (password required] [E-Mail Salt Institute]