Less salt on snack foods like chips, popcorn, nuts, negatively affecting flavor

[David777]

Why salt content is only an issue with about 30% of people. Why the snack food industry chose to reduce salt content for all of us instead of advising salt sensitive people to just buy reduced salt chips, popcorn, nuts. This person is salt insensitive and dislikes buying snack food products with less salty flavor. Yesterday opened a bag of Raley's White Corn Tortilla Chips I'd bought in the past that were nicely salty but found their product now has little salty flavor.

What is salt sensitivity?

...Salt sensitivity is a measure of how your blood pressure responds to salt intake. People are either salt-sensitive or salt-resistant. Those who are sensitive to salt are more likely to have high blood pressure than those who are resistant to salt...

What ordinary people are saying about their less salty chips:

https://www.reddit.com/r/FoodTheorists/comments/1576fi4

...Actually they changed the products. It has way less salt and they changed the oil. The chips have a different flavour now. Personally, I find them to be disgusting now but to each their own.
Nope its not just you. had several bags recently be like this then I got one that was good then got another bad and right back to no seasoning again. Really getting tired of this...

Why food manufacturers have been pressured to reduce salt from health organizations that are primarily concerned with health and not flavor. and their strategies for weaning us from what we had been used too.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950329319305324

High levels of sodium intake in the diet are known to increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and hypertension, which is diagnosed in more than 26% of the adult population worldwide...

 

[MrPants]

I'm with you!
Drives me crazy when I buy pistachios and they are just lightly salted. This 'salting process' seems to vary within the same brand as well. Some packs are great whereas others ... not so much

 

[That Lady in PA]

I am extremely salt sensitive.
I would like to go back to where nothing had salt (or pepper) and if you wanted some, you added it yourself.

Soups, especially!

 

[dilettante]

NO SURPRISE HERE: Americans are eating too much salt.

According to the FDA, Americans eat on average about 3,400 mg of sodium per day—more than 50 percent of the dietary guidelines recommendation of 2,300 mg per day, or about one teaspoon of table salt.

You're Probably Eating Way Too Much Salt. Here's How to Tell.

 

[dilettante]

Problem solved:



You're welcome!

 

[jujube]

I tried low-fat low-salt Cheezits once. The box would have been tastier.

 

[Muskrat]

After cutting back on salt for my SO I found my palate changed. I never actually knew what things tasted like…I salted so heavy. Now I find that I use way less in general. But I want cheetos to taste like my cravings imagine them.

 

[Pinky]

I look for low-salt potato chips, though we rarely have them these days.

 

[CallMeKate]

I look for low-salt potato chips, though we rarely have them these days.

I've been buying the Lay's Lightly Salted chips and Great Value Lightly Salted for a few years now... there's also a "Hint of Salt" Ritz cracker that is lower in sodium than regular no salt added saltines.

 

[Twostep]

SO has always been using little salt. I can nibble it out of the salt cellar. So cooking/baking with little and salt on the table.

 

[Jules]

If the package says it has salt, I want salt. There are umpteen other bags of stuff to get the low salt. Give me my salt.

There are powdered soup bouillons that used to have salt and no msg. Now they have msg and no salt and no flavour.

 

[HoneyNut]

This person is salt insensitive and dislikes buying snack food products with less salty flavor.

Me too! I don't normally eat chips or crackers, but around holiday time I like to indulge, and the chips were disappointing this year compared to my memory of them, maybe it was a salt thing. Crackers usually taste too sweet to me now, I don't know why they put sugar in crackers and pizza sauce, ruins the flavor in my opinion.

 

[MrPants]

Speaking of salt ... there's a very large salt farming area on the Caribbean Island of Bonaire. They flood large flat fields with sea water then close the water inlets and let the sun evaporate the water leaving salt deposits behind. They gather it up and ship it off in large caro ships.

Here's a pic of the mountains of salt after they collect the salt from the land it's deposited on:

Now that's a lot of salt!!

 

[jujube]

We stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats one time and walked around. I couldn't get my head around how far it went.

The whole concept of that much salt was mind boggling.

Back in the 1960s, I took a 4-hour tour of a salt mine in Austria. We started at the top of the mountain and slid down from level to level on polished wooden rails, finally taking a little gravity tram that spewed us out into a meadow at the bottom. Salty!

 

[Twostep]

Me too! I don't normally eat chips or crackers, but around holiday time I like to indulge, and the chips were disappointing this year compared to my memory of them, maybe it was a salt thing. Crackers usually taste too sweet to me now, I don't know why they put sugar in crackers and pizza sauce, ruins the flavor in my opinion.

The acid in tomatoe needs a bit of sugar. A bit! Aside from Doritos I have been making my own crackers. SO claims my seed bombs are too healthy but he eats them.

 

[Twostep]

We stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats one time and walked around. I couldn't get my head around how far it went.

The whole concept of that much salt was mind boggling.

Back in the 1960s, I took a 4-hour tour of a salt mine in Austria. We started at the top of the mountain and slid down from level to level on polished wooden rails, finally taking a little gravity tram that spewed us out into a meadow at the bottom. Salty!

Hallstatt?

 

[Tommy]

II rarely eat potato chips (crisps), but I wonder how much of the flavor change might stem from the elimination of trans fats and a reduction in saturated fats.

 

[hearlady]

I like lightly salted products. Not because I think they are healthier, but because I think they taste better.

 

[HermitHogan]

When my wife cooks, she never puts enough salt on the food for my taste. I add a bit when it's on my plate and then say "now, it's perfect!"

 

[JustBonee]

I’ve always been bothered by salty foods. …. once it even ruined an otherwise wonderful cruise vacation for me.

At least they have answered the call for low-salt in snacks and canned vetgetables..etc.

 

[The Doddering Biker]

Why salt content is only an issue with about 30% of people. Why the snack food industry chose to reduce salt content for all of us instead of advising salt sensitive people to just buy reduced salt chips, popcorn, nuts. This person is salt insensitive and dislikes buying snack food products with less salty flavor. Yesterday opened a bag of Raley's White Corn Tortilla Chips I'd bought in the past that were nicely salty but found their product now has little salty flavor.

What is salt sensitivity?

...Salt sensitivity is a measure of how your blood pressure responds to salt intake. People are either salt-sensitive or salt-resistant. Those who are sensitive to salt are more likely to have high blood pressure than those who are resistant to salt...

What ordinary people are saying about their less salty chips:

https://www.reddit.com/r/FoodTheorists/comments/1576fi4

...Actually they changed the products. It has way less salt and they changed the oil. The chips have a different flavour now. Personally, I find them to be disgusting now but to each their own.
Nope its not just you. had several bags recently be like this then I got one that was good then got another bad and right back to no seasoning again. Really getting tired of this...

Why food manufacturers have been pressured to reduce salt from health organizations that are primarily concerned with health and not flavor. and their strategies for weaning us from what we had been used too.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950329319305324

High levels of sodium intake in the diet are known to increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and hypertension, which is diagnosed in more than 26% of the adult population worldwide...

I also have found all the potato chips, pretzels and other goodies have been ruined a few years back by the removal of most of their salt content. I gave up buying them a long time ago.

However, as I have learned of late, it's just as well what the companies did. I have been found to have a heart problem which calls for quite a reduction of salt in my diet. The manufactures made it a lot easier for me to live with this decrease in salt consumption. Their near salt free products no longer are a desire.

 

[smiley]

As a kid bought smiths crisps - with including salt bag [miniature - blue and twisted handle] - gave me the option of including it or throwing away - and that was in the 1940's?

 

[Twostep]

I simply bake crackers with whatever strikes my fancy from parmesan to flax and seasalt.

 

[OneEyedDiva]

I haven't had potato chips in awhile, so I didn't realize there was an overall reduction of salt in those products. For about a year, I've been eating Popcorners. We get the variety box from Costco. My favorite is the Kettle Corn flavor. They also have White Cheddar, Sea Salt and Spicy. I like them all and they seem adequately salted to me. I remember sometime in the past having potato chips that I thought were just too salty.

 

[MaddHollander]

Why salt? I was a chaperone many years ago when my daughter’s elementary school class went on a field trip to a snack factory. I was amazed at the amount of salt used, applied when the chips are hot and the guide explained that salt is more than flavoring, that it’s also a very important preservative extending shelf life and preventing fungus.