I know in hindsight that this really shouldn’t be a surprise, but just to let you know that stock cubes are basically 50% salt!! The metrics on the front is a bit misleading because it is per 100ml…..but it tells you to make up 450ml. Per 450ml of liquid it is 4.0g of salt and the max per day is 5g.
I’m normally really vigilant for salt but I was making homemade soup and thought one would be great for flavour. That’s a lot of salt for seasoning.
Lesson learned and I will only be using pepper, herbs, chilli etc from now on.
Best wishes
Jezza
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Why don’t you try nutritional yeast powder instead? Can be a more expensive substitute but rich in B vitamins. You can mix with a little miso for that umami flavour.
Swiss bouillon in powder form is my favourite, rather than a cube - still has about 40% salt but that doesn’t bother me at all as I need to take at least 6mg daily to keep my BP up.
Sitting here replying at 01:40 'cos I've gone into AFib....
Yep, commercial stock is typically jam packed with salt. Saves them making something that actually tastes of what it claims. Also famous brands of gravy available in granule form: not so bad if you make it in their recommended proportions, but then that isn't gravy it's coloured water.
Although I'm now post heart attack, I've been keenly aware of minimising salt intake for quite a few decades. I think because I read of its relationship with stroke risk many aeons ago.
So for a long time I've been very conscious of and cautious of shop bought stock. But not all stock is created equal. The classic cubes though are particularly awful. Even good boys like Marigold Veg Bouillon powder are still fairly high in salt. But not as bad. The better quality liquid form pouches seem to be a better bet, though again they are not all created equal.
Just checking online: Tesco finest liquid chicken stock pouches: Salt / 100ml = 0.71 (which is OK if you are going to be using it in restrained quantities); @Waitrose: "Truefoods chilled chicken stock" 0.14g/100g - not used this one so can't vouch whether it tastes "a bit like chicken" or more like water. Could be worth a try.
If I can, I like to batch make my own chicken - and lamb - stock. And I put no salt in it: I can then control the amount of salt in the final dish it gets used in. But yeah, not always possible and its a faff so not everyone's cup of tea. But nothing quite beats a proper homemade chicken stock....
Ironically a key plank of my historic salt strategy was to use LoSo salt: ironic because post HA ACE inhibitor meds mean I can't use low sodium salt now (because of their using 50% potassium chloride as NaCl sub). I've just started experimenting with using MSG as partial salt replacement - having checked that the "MSG is bad" urban myth is basically that. It's not a direct replacement, but as a flavour enhancer can have a similar effect and can amplify the impact of any salt you do us. The advantage is that bang for buck wise it comes out at about 1/3 the sodium level of salt. Apparently.
Anyway, that's enough talk of all things stock. I might pop back to bed, but I am still in AFib unfortunately.
Thanks for the comprehensive reply and I hope you’re feeling better now.
Like you, I’m also very conscious of the amount of salt in my food and it was a lapse with the stock cube - I just wasn’t thinking. I use a lot of spices and herbs and grindy black pepper but let’s face it, as a flavouring nothing beats salt 😢……however I don’t cook with it, don’t add it post meal and I don’t use the store bought ready made sauces such as for pasta, curry etc.
I use most varities of the Kallo organic ordinary stock cubes. My partner has to have a higher salt intake than me, he has low sodium. personally I would use very little salt if cooking just for myself and I rarely add it to a meal afterwards.
I've recently bought this reduced salt bouillon powder after having used the normal marigold one. It's really good. Adds a lot of flavour to soup and I can just put himalayan salt in if I want.
OXO and some gravy powders do have a reduced salt alternative - I buy these and there’s no difference in taste. And if you are using a stock cube when making a large batch of, say, casserole, which you might eat once every few weeks, a cardiologist might not be too worried. It’s about everything in moderation……
They are!My husband is one that puts salt on everything (and he has no health issues 🙄 always gets a gold star at his annual checkup - life's so unfair!) and he says there's no difference too.
I'm sorry to hear of your loss. I haven't heard of mantle cell lymphoma and I have just googled it on the cancer research UK website.
My husband's bloods are always bob on. The nurse told me he is in excellent health and obviously looks after himself, but he's lucky because I am totally health conscious and I look after him 😂. I've given up on the salt though.
I make my own stock most of the time - chicken stock from the chicken carcass and save my veg peelings and make a veg stock. I now really notice the saltiness if I use a shop bought stock cube!
Too processed for me. Haven't had 'em for many years and can't say I particularly miss them. These days my mantra is basically don't buy it unless you could buy it in the 1950s! (OK so someone tell me you could get stock cubes in the 50s!) Needless to say, trips around my local Sainsbury's (other supermarkets are available .... ) only involves about a tenth of the available aisles !
Not just stock cubes/powder. Suggest one day you do a full check of your salt intake. I did this once and as the numbers built up heading for 2 or 3 grams I had this smug feeling. But by the end I was quite close to 6 g. You might be surprised too.
Are you using one stock cube per portion of soup? My Knorr stock cubes contain 0.87g of salt per 100ml which is 15% of the recommended daily intake of salt for an adult if made up with 450ml of water as directed. The stock cubes weigh 10g each so that is roughly 4g of salt per cube as you calculated but unless you are using one cube per person it doesn’t seem excessive as you do need some salt.
Haven’t used them for ages and now my husband does the cooking as I acquired chronic fatigue along with this heart condition after a virus when I wasn’t able to get an appointment when an antiviral might have saved me from both. Fortunately, I was never keen on salty stuff so don’t miss it. I always used to read the ingredients on packages and still do!
thankyou jezza, yes that certain brand is full of salt. I usually go for the knorr vegetable stock pots for ease but I will make my own stock for soups/stews etc most of the time as it freezes too. 👍
As always, my advice is to avoid all pre-made, packaged and processed items. Make your own sauces, soups and stocks using herbs, spices, fruit, vege and animal products.
We’ve forgotten how to eat and cook and I think we all rely too heavily on the convenience of ready made food and the modern supermarket.
Yep it was homemade soup from scratch - it was a momentary lapse and I just didn’t realise how much salt was in them! Almost all our meals are from scratch and we have a takeaway probably once a month.
Kallo organic vegetable very low salt cubes60g have 0.1g salt in them, if you have family who like a little salt flavour in cook in they are an alternative
I am 72 and I have cooked for 50+ years using commercial stock cubes for casseroles. I don't add extra salt . I have never had high blood pressure except on rare occasions of extreme stress - normal physiological response. I have read of studies which debunk the salt is bad for you theory and I suspect it is a bit like the animal fat is bad for you myth. I now make my own stock regularly from bones not because I am worried about the salt content of commercial stock cubes but because there are a lot of nutrients in bone broth. I strip off any bits of meat on the bones afterwards . Both cats and birds like this so it makes less waste . I use Sel de Guerande sea salt for cooking when needed and to season on the plate if necessary. I have no idea what 6g of salt looks like and suspect the same amount of sel de Guerande ( which always feels damp ) and table salt would look very different. I do know that to my taste much processed food is too salty but as I avoid this it's not a problem. I really think that worrying about occasional stock cube use in cooking is is probably worse for you than the stock cubes themselves.
Any studies which debunk salt are not scientific studies.
Eating too much salt is the single biggest cause of high blood pressure.The more salt you eat, the higher your blood pressure will be.
Salt makes your body hold onto water. If you eat too much, the extra water in your blood means there is extra pressure on your blood vessel walls, raising your blood pressure.
If you already have high blood pressure, too much salt will raise it further, and may mean that any blood pressure medicines you’re taking don't work as well as they should.
Cutting down on salt is one of the simplest ways to lower your blood pressure, and will start to make a difference very quickly, even within weeks.
In terms of the different types of salt, when it comes to the amount of Sodium they contain they are almost exactly the same. Salt is salt.
Salt is not salt. There is a difference in the composition of minerals in minimally processed sea salt and what is sold as table salt. For a start the former has not had iodine added to it nor anticaking agents. As to what is too much salt that will vary on an individual basis and according to activity and climate. But as usual we are given a one size fits all formula as to how much salt we should be consuming and subjected to scare tactics .
A quarter teaspoon of table salt has about 590 mg of sodium, coarse sea salt 580 mg, and kosher salt around 480 mg. In the context of the overall diet, which should have no more than 2300 mg of sodium, the difference in sodium content of the different salts is irrelevant.
There are no scare tactics or health organisations saying ‘hold on lads I think we should advocate for 5000mg of sodium a day’. It’s just science - Salt makes your body hold onto water. If you eat too much, the extra water in your blood means there is extra pressure on your blood vessel walls, raising your blood pressure.
You are talking about the amount of sodium in salt. There are other minerals in sea salt- potassium, magnesium and calcium. I have never said that we should be eating more salt in general but I think your post about stock cubes was scaremongering.
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AF, Flecainide & Salt
Salt intake
Article about salt reduction - worth a read.
