I was recommended a book by Brigitte Mars. Trawling through looking for a tomato soup recipe (big desire for tomato soup all of sudden) and I came across this:

8 tomatoes
half cup tahini or pine nuts
quarter cup fresh basil
1 teaspoon of celtic salt
half onion
2 cups water

I thought hang on a minute this is a huge amount of salt so I looked through more of her recipes and saw that she adds a lot of salt to many of them. I know one must look to one's own discretion about food choices but sometimes one feels in need of some guidance or fresh input.

My partner piped up with the fact that salt is added in large quatities to fast food to make it palatable - I know that it is not necessary with good fresh, raw ingredients so why is she adding so much salt to her recipes?

I would not be able to eat 1 teaspoon of salt with 8 tomatoes - would you?

Its easy to leave out the salt. If the dish doesn't taste good without the salt, try adding some celery. Some people dehydrate their celery and grind it into a powder as a salt substitute.

For some of my recipes, I will used ground sundried tomatoes for a salty taste (get the unsalted sundried tomatoes though).

Yes I agree it is easy to leave out the salt and I appreciate your suggestions for alternatives. But why would someone who has been in the raw food movement for a long time still be using and advocating so much salt?

Natural salt as found incorporated into a plant is a necessary and good thing to get into your diet.
Chemical salt is a good habit to shake loose of.
Some people use sea salt but that is just chemical salt that was mixed with water and then dried.
I was listening to an online audio today and the author described chemical salt as a poison: [www.rdnmovement.com]

FJ: There is wide variation...even amongst raw food 'gurus'. Many (like myself) leave out added salt altogether....as a less than optimal food. Others feel it is fine. Certainly you will be able to determine this yourself.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

About a year ago, I got Matt Amsden's Rawvolution and made one of his recipes without thinking critically about it. The dish was so salty, I couldn't get anyone to help me eat it. I've enjoyed most of what I've made from his book, but I learned a lesson about following salt measurements in recipes uncritically.

Personally I would not eat that much salt. That is one of the reasons I have chosen a raw foods diet.

1/2 tsp would suffice for what probably pureés down to a quart of liquid. Celtic sea salt is actually raked from the sea by hand and left to dehydrate in the sun, so it is more accurate to call it dehydrated sea water. It is not the same thing as table salt mined from calcified ancient seabeds underground. Adding celery to the recipe, instead of salt, would probably work well. Also, I get the sense that the added salts in raw recipes are used for preservative effect, as much as for flavor. There is just way too much salt in most of the recipes that I've seen for seasoning alone. What surprises me about this is that it's a Brigitte Mars recipe--hasn't she been doing this for a while, long enough to find added seasonings unnecessary?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 02:25AM by Tamukha.

I suppose that any author would say they were catering (or pandering) to a pre-raw of SAD taste. And perhaps this author isn't as raw as people would expect from a raw author. It has been my experience that a lot of the raw proponents are not 100% raw foodists. They address the beginners, or people still living in the SAD world, so much of their material is more rudimentary than the practices of many of those who participate on this forum.

Raw food recipes often do use huge, and very unhealthy, amounts of salt - far more than cooked vegan recipes.

I believe many use salt in place of dehydrating to soften raw vegetables.

Yes, some foods can stand a touch of fermentation with the help of salt.

Brigitte Mars on natural remedies for headaches..

"Foods to eat more of include barley, black sesame seed, buckwheat, rye, carrots, celery, radish, and scallions."

[brigittemars.com]

..so she seems to associate headache with lack of minimal intake of mineral rich veggies (containing healthy amounts of sodium), like "barley, sesame seeds...carrots, celery, radish and scallions".

..on adding salt to recipes, one tsp of salt has about 2 grams of sodium which, according to the Vegan Society, is in the "reasonably safe" (2-5grams) range [www.vegansociety.com] , pretty low considering adult males often consume 9g/day. One tsp of salt also contains about 3 grams of chloride, another essential mineral for digestion which is found in plants only in trace amounts, the lack of which causing bloating.

I seldom add salt to recipes, preferring to use the shaker on certain foods, but would not turn up my nose at someone's salty dish.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 11:18AM by loeve.

When researching this recently for an article, I averaged out sodium recommendations from different countries.

I got: Acceptable daily maximum: 1600 mg (UK/US consumption averages at 4000 mg+)
Ideal daily maximum: 1200 mg

1 tsp of salt (Celtic) has 1320 mg of sodium.

So my figures disagree with the Vegan Society's 'reasonably safe' range. (Are they current?)

So, if someone ate the whole quantity of the tomato recipe they'd be over the ideal daily maximum (although I'd guess the recipe is for two to four).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 11:53AM by debbietook.

debbie,

True. But from me, it's not that the sodium ratio would be high; it's that, from a gastronomic perspective, it's too much salt to season that recipe. I don't care how depleted in sodium I am--I don't want to eat something that's gonna make my mouth tingle and make me feel parched! That kinda defeats the purpose of a nice, refreshing, raw soup . . . mmmmm . . . I have some nice ripe tomatoes, come to think . . .

The salt issue for me is about the source of the salt. Is the source from:

1) natural plants where the salt has been incorporated into the plant and is one with the plant.

OR

2) Is the salt just a pile of stand alone toxic chemicals that has no chelated bonds that the plant provides and therefor unusable to the body as food.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 01:47PM by EZ rider.

Great Debbie, then we both just researched it and can compare notes.

The (UK) Daily Reference Intake is the amount that should satisfy most nutritional needs defined as follows..

• Dietary Reference Values (DRVs) comprise a series of estimates of the amount of energy and nutrients needed by different groups of healthy people in the UK population.
• Included within this definition are three types of estimates: Reference Nutrient Intakes (RNIs), Estimated Average Requirements (EARs) and Lower Reference Nutrient Intakes (LRNIs).
• RNIs are used for protein, vitamins and minerals, and are an estimate of the amount that should meet the needs of most of the group to which they apply. They are not minimum targets.
• The EAR is used in particular for energy.
• Intakes below the LRNI are almost certainly not enough for most people.
[www.nutrition.org.uk]

"Based on physiological requirements, the Reference Nutrient Intake for sodium is 1.6g per day (equivalent to 4.2g salt per day) and the Lower Reference Nutrient Intake for sodium is 0.58g per day (equivalent to 1.5g salt per day)."
[www.nutrition.org.uk]


..the RNI (UK) is neither a minimum nor a maximum, but "an amount to meet the needs of most of the group".

Edit: the US "Daily Value" is 2400mg [www.fda.gov] .. THe Vegan Society offers an undated opinion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 03:44PM by loeve.

..rather, the Vegan Society offers an opinion with the note, "Copyright © 2004-2008 Vegan Society", which means to me that the article was probably writen in the last five years, but who knows exactly when -- could be an older article adopted recently I suppose.

[www.vegansociety.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 03:55PM by loeve.

As I've been eating more and more raw food, the more I've noticed that I've become sensitive to salt.
I generally cut salt in half for recipes. I only use natural himalayan sea salt, and not a lot of that, or Nama Shoyu, or occasionally Braggs. Over time, I've been cutting down, and down, and down...

I do agree, a lot of the recipes seem a little over salted, or over sweetened.

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
We are all in this together!
Namasté

I probably use more salt than most raw vegans. I bulk by it 10lbs at a time. I use it mainly for curing olives and fermenting veggies. I cured 40-50lbs of olives this winter, probably using the same weight in salt, fortunately I toss most of the salt out once it's taken the bitterness out of the olives.

For meals, I use only what I need to get the dish to taste right, When I started eating raw vegan I was amazed at the amount of salt many raw vegan recipes call for, no way was I going to be able to eat that much salt, I always ended up using a fraction of what the recipe suggested. Many times I find I can use no salt and not compromise the flavor of the dish.