Stay Away From Store-Bought Mojo

[Rozzer]

Our supermarket came out with a house-brand mojo, the caribbean citrus-based marinade. We'd always made our own, but tried this one. Absolutely terrible. About five times as much salt as necessary. So we wondered. And we bought two other kinds of big-name Latin brand prepared mojos. The same. It's not just a question of cooking healthy. The extra salt makes it taste terrible. I wonder if the same thing applies to adobo, or any of the other kinds of mixes they use down there (up here, actually, around Miami). It's pretty simple to make these things one's self. If any of you folks come from or are familiar with a Latin culture, could you tell us if there's some kind of pro-salt prejudice in Latin food?

[K. Slink]

I think there is! There's a large Hispanic population in this area, and all of the food or seasonings I've purchased have been WAY too heavy on the salt. I don't even attempt to use the seasonings directly on the food anymore, it goes into the brining mix....

[eclecticsynergy]

Generally, hot-weather cuisines are heavier on the salt, I think simply because people living in hot climates tend to need more salt. Spicier cooking is commonly traditional in tropical cultures too- my feeling is that hot spices make it easier to perspire and can make hot climates a bit more comfortable. Same idea with drinking hot tea in India.

Some look at this from the perspective of a yin-yang thing. Expanding trends for the heat, contracting ones for the cold...

On the subject of commercial seasoning blends, I was in love with Sazon Goya in the beginning; it was a while before I noticed MSG is the primary ingredient. Super salty. Those who've read my posts on the subject know that I don't necessarily avoid MSG on principle, but (as with salt) I do prefer at least to know how much I'm using. I'll add these things- separately- when I choose to, thank you very much.

Don't need to be loading my dishes with tons of sodium when what I really want to do is season.

[Rozzer]

Is salt all that heavy in Indian cuisines? I've never noticed it, but it could easily be hidden underneath all those other spices. The salt in Caribbean-area latin foods jumps up and smacks you in the eye. I wonder about the hypertension and stroke rates in the area. Salt IS (or was) very heavy in Japan, at least when I was living there 35 years ago. It wasn't uncommon for people to die of stroke in their forties. And they of course used tons of MSG, frequently in its natural form of seaweed.

[eclecticsynergy]

While it's probably true that those with hypertension ought to avoid egregious excesses of salt, there is a mounting body of evidence that low-salt diets do not prevent high blood pressure and actually increase the risk of death from heart attacks and strokes. Furthermore, recent overviews looking at 11 longterm and 57 shorter-term trials found that even extreme interventions with drastic reductions in sodium intake produced only minimal reductions in blood pressure, "like going from 120/80 to 119/79."

I've done some reading on this subject since it came up in the MSG thread awhile back. The link between salt and high blood pressure is very unclear- it's largely based on a study from the 1970s where a researcher who clearly wanted to achieve a particular outcome found that he could increase blood pressure in lab rats. But he had to feed them a ridiculously huge dosage- the human equivalent would be 500 grams, that's half a kilo of sodium! Bear in mind that's pure sodium, not salt. To get that much sodium, one would have to be eating about two and a half pounds of table salt every day! Presently the average American consumes about 8.5 grams of salt daily, less than one hundredth of that amount. Yet he claimed "unequivocal" evidence of the link. Since then the idea has been taught in every medical and nursing school, every nutrition and diet course. Today most doctors and politicians have accepted this idea as fact and thoroughly internalized the concept, and don't recognize the many scientific studies which contradict it. I'll give the doctors the benefit of the doubt and assume most of them simply haven't heard about this research yet- many scientific and professional journals have, until recently, been reluctant to publish results which contradict this long-established belief.

Yes, this is a controversial issue and there is a great deal of skepticism, since "everybody knows salt causes high blood pressure." But the science is saying it doesn't. Of all the research done on the subject there hasn't been a single study where salt has been shown to cause this condition in healthy people. And the reason it may be bad for those with hypertension isn't some sinister arcane chemistry- it's just that salt makes you retain water. That's it.

Much recent research, including an 8-year study published this year in the journal of the AMA, shows not only that there's no link between sodium intake and the development of hypertension, but that those with the lowest consumption of it were the most likely to die of cardiovascular disease. A second modern study found that those who consumed the most salt actually had lower median blood pressure than those who consumed the least. And back in 2001 another found that those eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in fat substantially reduced their blood pressure, even when salt intake was maintained.

As to the high incidence of heart attack and stroke in some places like Japan where average salt consumption is rather high, when variations in sodium intake within these populations have been analyzed, there's no correlation with cardiovascular problems, indicating that other factors like genes or cultural stress levels are probably responsible.

There is a very small percentage of the population for whom sodium intake does indeed directly affect their blood pressure. These rare individuals are classified as salt-sensitive, and the condition is unusual enough to be considered an anomaly, possibly genetic.

Michael Ruhlman on salt: "Given that it's fundamental to our existence (without it we literally die) and that it helped to create both stable stationary societies and world travel (food preservation and therefore surplus in a community or on a ship), our main failure would be to undervalue its importance and power. It is powerfully good and useful; but also, anything so powerful can be used harmfully (as in our processed foods, where salt hides and slips unrecognized into your body).

Finally, a recent article in Scientific American, It's Time To End The War On Salt:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...he-war-on-salt