As the average standard of living in our country rises, people's pursuit of a healthy diet has become increasingly intense. Many people know that according to the "Chinese Dietary Pagoda", the daily salt intake per person should not exceed 6g; and excessive salt consumption can harm health. However, the market is flooded with a wide variety of foods, and many foods we consider healthy may hide a large amount of salt. Therefore, in our daily lives, in addition to using less salt when cooking, we must also learn to avoid foods that are "hidden salt bombs".
So, which foods are "hidden salt bombs"?
Instant and processed foods
Such as instant noodles, pizza, hamburgers, fried dough sticks, noodles, breakfast cereals, tofu shreds, vegetarian chicken, buns, and steamed buns. The baking soda used for leavening is sodium bicarbonate. Adding it to instant and fast-foods can improve the taste, but it invisibly increases the body's salt intake. At the same time, processed foods like ham, sausages, cured meats, grilled chicken, luncheon meat, century eggs, and pork floss have been infused with a large amount of salt during their production, so these foods are all high in salt.
Snacks and beverage-type foods
Snacks are something people easily overlook because some believe that if it's not salty, it doesn't contain salt and don't associate sweet foods with high salt content. For example, biscuits, cakes, pastries, ice cream, and cheese. The production processes of these foods require sodium-containing ingredients, such as baking powder (sodium bicarbonate), and functional additives like sodium citrate for adjusting sourness and sodium benzoate as a preservative. Meanwhile, snacks like shredded squid, beef jerky, seaweed, potato chips, melon seeds, and preserved fruits are naturally salty, indicating they contain no small amount of salt.
Seasonings
This includes soy sauce, vinegar, MSG, chicken essence, oyster sauce, broad bean paste, chili sauce, chive flowers, and fermented bean curd, all of which contain salt. For example, every 5ml of soy sauce is equivalent to 1g of salt. Therefore, when using these seasonings in cooking, you should reduce the amount of salt added.
Tips: Even natural foods contain sodium, including meat, fish, shrimp, and other aquatic products; many vegetables, such as water spinach, bean sprouts, and seaweed, also contain natural salt. Therefore, when choosing food, try to eat less high-salt food and keep track of the salt content in every meal. This way, you can have a balanced diet and maintain good health.
Limiting salt starts with cooking methods
1. In terms of cooking methods, you can use measuring tools to control salt intake. Turn "invisible" salt into "counted" salt. For example, 20ml of soy sauce = 3g of salt, 10g of yellow bean paste = 1.5g of salt. If both are needed to season the same dish, their amounts should be reduced proportionally to control salt intake.
2. Changing cooking methods can also help. Because high-temperature cooking methods like pan-frying, grilling, and deep-frying require more salt, it's healthier to use low-temperature cooking methods like steaming, boiling, and stewing that preserve the original flavor of the food.
3. Regarding the use of seasonings, you can use vinegar as a substitute for salt. Vinegar is a wonderful invention; it can enhance the savory flavor without salt and also reduce the salty taste when there is too much salt. However, the recommendation to use vinegar is not to compensate for high salt, but to help us adapt to a less salty taste.
4. People who like to add sugar when cooking should change this habit. Because sugar can mask the natural salty taste of food, making it impossible to judge the amount of salt used. Therefore, we cannot rely solely on tasting to determine if salt is excessive. If a dish is too salty, rinsing it with plain water before eating is a healthier choice.
5. For foods with a strong natural flavor, such as tomatoes, bitter melon, and bell peppers, you can use less salt when cooking them.