The Daily Mail is off on one, again. It’s about salt in top brand foods this time.
Supermarkets’ ‘own-label’ foods contain less salt than the leading brands, the food watchdog reveals today.
Now, ‘leading brands’ are called that because they sell more than other (non-leading) brands. Hasn’t it occurred to anyone that ‘leading brands’ hold that position because in spite of costing more, they actually taste better?
Kingsmill White tastes better than Tesco Wholemeal (although comparing white bread and wholemeal is a bit pointless).
Kelloggs Cornflakes taste better than Tesco’s own brand.
Kelloggs Rice Krispies taste better than Sainsbury’s own-brand version of puffed rice cereal.
Heinz Tomato Ketchup tastes better than Asda’s Smart Price version.
Why? Because they all contain more salt. And salt makes food taste good. It’s also why so-called ‘junk food’ also tastes good – or it used to, until they started taking salt out. As an aside, Heinz Baked Beans taste better than any other baked beans on the planet, yet even Heinz has screwed up by removing most of the salt. I just put it back in when I cook them.
Furthermore, the Food Standards Agency recommends bread should contain a target level of 1.1g of salt. Kingsmill bread only contains 0.08g more, but Tesco’s offering contains 0.4g less. Does it actually need to contain this much less?
This is the problem: people have got it into their heads that salt should be eliminated completely – or as near to completely as possible – from our food. The only reason bread still has it in is that it won’t rise properly if they take it out altogether. It would also taste totally crap, but that doesn’t bother them.
The human body needs salt – a totally salt-free diet would be unhealthy. But worse than that, a totally salt free diet would lead to the blandest food imaginable. And that reminds me of that Goodness Gracious Me sketch and ‘going for an English’:
Around here, takeaway Chinese meals often taste rubbish because the salt is gone (egg-fried rice made with rice cooked without salt is awful). I even had a pizza last week and I didn’t know they made salt-free tomato paste and pepperoni until now. Thank God most Indian takeaways haven’t succumbed yet.