5 ms·

Burger King continued to use iodized salt consistently, while McDonalds, Wendys etc have switched to flakier salts for their fries which cuts total sodium overa

by gopalv 2y ago

Burger King continued to use iodized salt consistently, while McDonalds, Wendys etc have switched to flakier salts for their fries which cuts total sodium overall by being flatter instead of grainy, but without any iodine added to it. The downward trend in fast food began in the 70s, once sodium was seen as bad, so more salty tasting thin crystals were preferred. [1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20634172/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20634172/ (on researchgate)

erikpukinskis 2y ago
I also prefer cooking with the flakier stuff because I can grab a pinch of it and sprinkle it in a controlled way. I try to use iodized salt when it’s convenient: when salting pasta water, in baking, etc… but I wonder if my family is getting enough.
- dkarl 2y ago
  When my wife's doctor recommended more iodine in her diet, I was surprised how hard it was to find iodized flaky salt. I only found one brand I could order, and it was extremely expensive and didn't have a great texture for cooking with. I keep iodized table salt around and sometimes use it for salting soup, stock, or pasta water, but 99% of the time I reach for plain old Morton kosher salt.
  - connicpu 2y ago
    It might just be easier and cheaper to take iodine supplements. Humans need about 150mcg/day, just make sure not to overdose on it. Vitamin companies love selling you huge doses you don't need, but if you know what dosage you're looking for you can usually find appropriate ones.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - tzs 2y ago
      > Vitamin companies love selling you huge doses you don't need, but if you know what dosage you're looking for you can usually find appropriate ones. One approach that can work is to use multivitamins. They usually have a lower dosage of everything than do single thing supplements. For example the iodine supplements I've seen are in the 225 mcg to 325 mcg range. Most adult multivitamins seem to have 150 mcg. If you want lower than that children's multivitamins can do the trick. Flintstone's have 90 mcg. House brands meant to directly compete with Flintstone's do not always copy the Flintstone's dosages, so be sure to check the label. Walmart's Equate brand for example is 150 mcg, same as most adult multivitamins. I like to take children's vitamins as insurance. They have enough of many things that if I have a minor deficiency in my diet they should cover it, but not so much as to cause problems if my diet is sufficient or even a little high. Plus they taste good, which helps if you have other supplements you are taking that do not taste good.
      - wahern 2y ago
        > They usually have a lower dosage of everything than do single thing supplements. For example the iodine supplements I've seen are in the 225 mcg to 325 mcg range. The RDA for iodine is 150 mcg, so 325 should normally draw concern. However, the average iodine intake in Japan is well over 1000 mcg, to no ill effect. Too much iodine is definitely bad, but the dosage that is firmly established as causing problems (oddly, a similar effect as too little iodine) is at least another order of magnitude beyond the Japanese intake. (There may be weird interactions between iodine and fluoride, but that recent data is still very tentative and suspect, and even at 325 mcg/day isn't concerning.) Supplements are made from kelp, so there's potential issues with heavy metals. But, again, the average Japanese intake of the types of heavy metals kelp accumulates is multiples of the US RDA limit, to no known ill effect. However, there are no USP or similar reputably certified iodine supplements, only certified multivitamins with iodine. That's more concerning to me than anything else. Nonetheless, FWIW I give my kids an iodine supplement once or twice a week. I also cook with iodized salt, but we eat out or consume prepared food enough times in a week that I figured a supplement was worthwhile, all things considered. RDAs are typically computed by measuring urine excretion, so it's possible "topping up" iodine that way might not be very effective--just quickly excreted. I dunno. Cows milk can be a good source of iodine, but my kids don't consume milk regularly, and only one drinks cows milk. Fortunately, they do like anchovies, so I try to add those into the mix.
  - hansvm 2y ago
    Flaky salt is easy to make. You can adjust the texture as desired. I usually start with a bucket of sea water, but iodized salt works too.
    - sfn42 2y ago
      My SO bought a bag of "natural sea salt" once. It smelled like rotten ocean which should have been enough of a warning but I used it in a dish anyway and that food went to waste. Tasted horrible.
      - hansvm 2y ago
        I wouldn't buy from there again! I'm not sure what they did wrong (maybe they cheated by adding something to normal salt that later rotted?), but that's definitely not how it turns out at home. In most dishes you can't tell the difference between sea salt and table salt (assuming you've formed the same texture in both), and I use the ocean just because it's convenient.
        sfn42 2y ago
        I just assumed it was due to the same stuff that makes the ocean smell like that in certain places/seasons. Rotting organic matter. Maybe it was unfiltered or something like that. Maybe it was just s bad batch. Anyway i use regular Maldon sea salt, it's perfect. It's like $2-3 or so for a pack that lasts for months. No need to fix what isn't broken. My SO just has a habit of buying pointless crap some times.
        hansvm 2y ago
        > maybe unfiltered That seems plausible. I definitely filter mine. You need at least a coarse filter for sand and whatnot, and various biofilms and whatnot are visibly problematic for culinary salt as you apply heat. I'm sure they're food-safe if you eat them fast enough that they don't rot, but a finer filter to get rid of that crap is prudent. > no need to fix what isn't broken Agreed. For most applications I portion out from a giant bag of salt from Costco or similar. The flaky sea salt is just a fun side-activity/hobby combined with a psychological aversion to paying market rates for flaky salt. > buying pointless crap Aw :(
FriedPickles 2y ago
Hmm, why don't they make iodized flaky salt?
- gopalv 2y ago
  > why don't they make iodized flaky salt? They'll figure out a way eventually, but it is definitely harder. It is always easy to grow something uniform as a pure crystal, without fault lines on them causing crumbling. As a kid who spent a lot of time with chemistry, it used to fascinate me that you can crystallize out a clean salt crystal out of a mix of potassium permanganate and salt, the salt grain will grow pretty much pure salt on it without a hint of purple (also burned my nose skin off collecting chlorine from the exercise, talk to your local chemistry teacher and find out why). I never succeeded in making a colored salt transparent crystal.
- ufo 2y ago
  I think it's a United States thing. There are other countries where all salt meant for human consumption must be iodized.
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    Almost all table salt is. Flake or kosher salt has become fashionable for various reasons. You’ll not see any change for awhile, as the same clowns who are against fluoridation and vaccination also want to enjoy the freedom of a life without iodine.
    - ufo 2y ago
      Notably, a lot of non-table salt in the US is not iodized. So the amount of iodine someone gets depends on how much of their food is industrialized, vs home cooked.
  - pkaye 2y ago
    US has adequate intake while Norway, Germany and Finland have iodine deficiency. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8240726/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8240726/ > The iodine intake is also inadequate in several countries with strong health systems and otherwise successful public health programs (Norway, Germany and Finland). In Norway, iodized salt is not widely implemented and the allowed level of fortification is only 5 ppm, below the recommended minimum level of 15 ppm. Fish and seafood were assumed to provide adequate iodine intake in the population, but their iodine content is not high enough unless consumed every day, and their consumption is declining. In Germany, a major challenge is the low use of iodized salt in the production of processed foods, which contributes to most dietary salt. Finland had an effective salt iodization program for decades, but decreased consumption of iodized salt and milk resulted in lower iodine intakes. Actions to strengthen the coverage of iodized salt were recently recommended by the Finnish National Nutrition Council.
ak217 2y ago
> downward trend ... sodium was seen as bad Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Salt is also an opportunistic carrier for iodine supplementation. So to call it good or bad, you'd need to either come up with an epidemiological study of the two diseases relative to each other, or maybe propose an alternative carrier for the iodine supplementation.
- simondotau 2y ago
  > Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure. The evidence for this is poor, and there is some evidence to the contrary.[0] Right now it is difficult to assert that there's anything more than a correlation, possibly because many popular high salt food choices could be bad for reasons other than sodium (e.g. fast food staples). In recent decades, widespread success of anti-salt messaging means that lower salt intake is now highly correlated with eating a healthy diet. There's no first-order harm in a low salt diet, but there may be some second-order concerns. For example, when food manufacturers are pushed to reduce salt, their arsenal for achieving hyperpalatability becomes narrowed to objectively worse things like sugar and refined seed oils. -- [0] "The field of heart failure has evolved [...] There is now substantial randomized trial data to indicate that dietary sodium restriction does not provide the reduction in clinical events with accepted heterogeneity in the clinical trial results." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38215917/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38215917/ (2024)
  - ak217 2y ago
    That study is focused on how much to restrict sodium intake in patients who have already experienced heart failure to avoid further clinical events (more heart attacks). The evidence for excess sodium intake causing cardiovascular problems (by way of either high blood pressure or tissue damage from sodium spikes) remains pretty robust. See for example https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8470268/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8470268/. I think the closest thing to what you're saying that has been found is that very low sodium levels in the diet also lead to problems (the body is starved of electrolytes).
- 2y ago
ThrustVectoring 2y ago
Saltier tasting salt is likely counterproductive, IMO. People aren't born knowing how much salt taste corresponds to how much salt consumption, so that gets tuned by persistent salt deficits causing upregulation of salty food desire. In other words, homeostatic feedback causes salt consumption to stay about the same by increased consumption of salty-tasting processed food.
- kijiki 2y ago
  > In other words, homeostatic feedback causes salt consumption to stay about the same by increased consumption of salty-tasting processed food. I'd imagine that McDonalds/Wendys/etc don't view that as a bad thing...
- tasty_freeze 2y ago
  While I was growing up, my family put so much salt on everything, even before tasting it. About once a month during the summer months my folks would surprise us by picking up pizza (with 8 growing kids, it was a lot of pizza). The top would be flopped open on the boxes, and then mom would start shaking the salt, and shaking, and shaking, and wouldn't stop until you could see a layer. We were all so used it that non-salty pizza was drab, just as you state. I finally kicked the habit when I went to college. There were no salt shakers out on the tables. After the first semester I went home and nearly choked on the level of salt on the food.
thatcat 2y ago
i wonder why when you can simply add potassium salt to make it taste saltier without sodium

by gopalv 2y ago

erikpukinskis 2y ago

I also prefer cooking with the flakier stuff because I can grab a pinch of it and sprinkle it in a controlled way. I try to use iodized salt when it’s convenient: when salting pasta water, in baking, etc… but I wonder if my family is getting enough.

dkarl 2y ago
When my wife's doctor recommended more iodine in her diet, I was surprised how hard it was to find iodized flaky salt. I only found one brand I could order, and it was extremely expensive and didn't have a great texture for cooking with. I keep iodized table salt around and sometimes use it for salting soup, stock, or pasta water, but 99% of the time I reach for plain old Morton kosher salt.
- connicpu 2y ago
  It might just be easier and cheaper to take iodine supplements. Humans need about 150mcg/day, just make sure not to overdose on it. Vitamin companies love selling you huge doses you don't need, but if you know what dosage you're looking for you can usually find appropriate ones.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - tzs 2y ago
    > Vitamin companies love selling you huge doses you don't need, but if you know what dosage you're looking for you can usually find appropriate ones. One approach that can work is to use multivitamins. They usually have a lower dosage of everything than do single thing supplements. For example the iodine supplements I've seen are in the 225 mcg to 325 mcg range. Most adult multivitamins seem to have 150 mcg. If you want lower than that children's multivitamins can do the trick. Flintstone's have 90 mcg. House brands meant to directly compete with Flintstone's do not always copy the Flintstone's dosages, so be sure to check the label. Walmart's Equate brand for example is 150 mcg, same as most adult multivitamins. I like to take children's vitamins as insurance. They have enough of many things that if I have a minor deficiency in my diet they should cover it, but not so much as to cause problems if my diet is sufficient or even a little high. Plus they taste good, which helps if you have other supplements you are taking that do not taste good.
    - wahern 2y ago
      > They usually have a lower dosage of everything than do single thing supplements. For example the iodine supplements I've seen are in the 225 mcg to 325 mcg range. The RDA for iodine is 150 mcg, so 325 should normally draw concern. However, the average iodine intake in Japan is well over 1000 mcg, to no ill effect. Too much iodine is definitely bad, but the dosage that is firmly established as causing problems (oddly, a similar effect as too little iodine) is at least another order of magnitude beyond the Japanese intake. (There may be weird interactions between iodine and fluoride, but that recent data is still very tentative and suspect, and even at 325 mcg/day isn't concerning.) Supplements are made from kelp, so there's potential issues with heavy metals. But, again, the average Japanese intake of the types of heavy metals kelp accumulates is multiples of the US RDA limit, to no known ill effect. However, there are no USP or similar reputably certified iodine supplements, only certified multivitamins with iodine. That's more concerning to me than anything else. Nonetheless, FWIW I give my kids an iodine supplement once or twice a week. I also cook with iodized salt, but we eat out or consume prepared food enough times in a week that I figured a supplement was worthwhile, all things considered. RDAs are typically computed by measuring urine excretion, so it's possible "topping up" iodine that way might not be very effective--just quickly excreted. I dunno. Cows milk can be a good source of iodine, but my kids don't consume milk regularly, and only one drinks cows milk. Fortunately, they do like anchovies, so I try to add those into the mix.
- hansvm 2y ago
  Flaky salt is easy to make. You can adjust the texture as desired. I usually start with a bucket of sea water, but iodized salt works too.
  - sfn42 2y ago
    My SO bought a bag of "natural sea salt" once. It smelled like rotten ocean which should have been enough of a warning but I used it in a dish anyway and that food went to waste. Tasted horrible.
    - hansvm 2y ago
      I wouldn't buy from there again! I'm not sure what they did wrong (maybe they cheated by adding something to normal salt that later rotted?), but that's definitely not how it turns out at home. In most dishes you can't tell the difference between sea salt and table salt (assuming you've formed the same texture in both), and I use the ocean just because it's convenient.
      - sfn42 2y ago
        I just assumed it was due to the same stuff that makes the ocean smell like that in certain places/seasons. Rotting organic matter. Maybe it was unfiltered or something like that. Maybe it was just s bad batch. Anyway i use regular Maldon sea salt, it's perfect. It's like $2-3 or so for a pack that lasts for months. No need to fix what isn't broken. My SO just has a habit of buying pointless crap some times.
        hansvm 2y ago
        > maybe unfiltered That seems plausible. I definitely filter mine. You need at least a coarse filter for sand and whatnot, and various biofilms and whatnot are visibly problematic for culinary salt as you apply heat. I'm sure they're food-safe if you eat them fast enough that they don't rot, but a finer filter to get rid of that crap is prudent. > no need to fix what isn't broken Agreed. For most applications I portion out from a giant bag of salt from Costco or similar. The flaky sea salt is just a fun side-activity/hobby combined with a psychological aversion to paying market rates for flaky salt. > buying pointless crap Aw :(

FriedPickles 2y ago

Hmm, why don't they make iodized flaky salt?

gopalv 2y ago
> why don't they make iodized flaky salt? They'll figure out a way eventually, but it is definitely harder. It is always easy to grow something uniform as a pure crystal, without fault lines on them causing crumbling. As a kid who spent a lot of time with chemistry, it used to fascinate me that you can crystallize out a clean salt crystal out of a mix of potassium permanganate and salt, the salt grain will grow pretty much pure salt on it without a hint of purple (also burned my nose skin off collecting chlorine from the exercise, talk to your local chemistry teacher and find out why). I never succeeded in making a colored salt transparent crystal.
ufo 2y ago
I think it's a United States thing. There are other countries where all salt meant for human consumption must be iodized.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  Almost all table salt is. Flake or kosher salt has become fashionable for various reasons. You’ll not see any change for awhile, as the same clowns who are against fluoridation and vaccination also want to enjoy the freedom of a life without iodine.
  - ufo 2y ago
    Notably, a lot of non-table salt in the US is not iodized. So the amount of iodine someone gets depends on how much of their food is industrialized, vs home cooked.
- pkaye 2y ago
  US has adequate intake while Norway, Germany and Finland have iodine deficiency. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8240726/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8240726/ > The iodine intake is also inadequate in several countries with strong health systems and otherwise successful public health programs (Norway, Germany and Finland). In Norway, iodized salt is not widely implemented and the allowed level of fortification is only 5 ppm, below the recommended minimum level of 15 ppm. Fish and seafood were assumed to provide adequate iodine intake in the population, but their iodine content is not high enough unless consumed every day, and their consumption is declining. In Germany, a major challenge is the low use of iodized salt in the production of processed foods, which contributes to most dietary salt. Finland had an effective salt iodization program for decades, but decreased consumption of iodized salt and milk resulted in lower iodine intakes. Actions to strengthen the coverage of iodized salt were recently recommended by the Finnish National Nutrition Council.

ak217 2y ago

> downward trend ... sodium was seen as bad Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Salt is also an opportunistic carrier for iodine supplementation. So to call it good or bad, you'd need to either come up with an epidemiological study of the two diseases relative to each other, or maybe propose an alternative carrier for the iodine supplementation.

simondotau 2y ago
> Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure. The evidence for this is poor, and there is some evidence to the contrary.[0] Right now it is difficult to assert that there's anything more than a correlation, possibly because many popular high salt food choices could be bad for reasons other than sodium (e.g. fast food staples). In recent decades, widespread success of anti-salt messaging means that lower salt intake is now highly correlated with eating a healthy diet. There's no first-order harm in a low salt diet, but there may be some second-order concerns. For example, when food manufacturers are pushed to reduce salt, their arsenal for achieving hyperpalatability becomes narrowed to objectively worse things like sugar and refined seed oils. -- [0] "The field of heart failure has evolved [...] There is now substantial randomized trial data to indicate that dietary sodium restriction does not provide the reduction in clinical events with accepted heterogeneity in the clinical trial results." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38215917/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38215917/ (2024)
- ak217 2y ago
  That study is focused on how much to restrict sodium intake in patients who have already experienced heart failure to avoid further clinical events (more heart attacks). The evidence for excess sodium intake causing cardiovascular problems (by way of either high blood pressure or tissue damage from sodium spikes) remains pretty robust. See for example https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8470268/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8470268/. I think the closest thing to what you're saying that has been found is that very low sodium levels in the diet also lead to problems (the body is starved of electrolytes).
2y ago

ThrustVectoring 2y ago

Saltier tasting salt is likely counterproductive, IMO. People aren't born knowing how much salt taste corresponds to how much salt consumption, so that gets tuned by persistent salt deficits causing upregulation of salty food desire. In other words, homeostatic feedback causes salt consumption to stay about the same by increased consumption of salty-tasting processed food.

kijiki 2y ago
> In other words, homeostatic feedback causes salt consumption to stay about the same by increased consumption of salty-tasting processed food. I'd imagine that McDonalds/Wendys/etc don't view that as a bad thing...
tasty_freeze 2y ago
While I was growing up, my family put so much salt on everything, even before tasting it. About once a month during the summer months my folks would surprise us by picking up pizza (with 8 growing kids, it was a lot of pizza). The top would be flopped open on the boxes, and then mom would start shaking the salt, and shaking, and shaking, and wouldn't stop until you could see a layer. We were all so used it that non-salty pizza was drab, just as you state. I finally kicked the habit when I went to college. There were no salt shakers out on the tables. After the first semester I went home and nearly choked on the level of salt on the food.

thatcat 2y ago

i wonder why when you can simply add potassium salt to make it taste saltier without sodium