" Hi there, Pepper "......" 'lo Salt " (Lo Salt, Salt alternative)

Member Name: zoe_page_1

Product:	Lo Salt, Salt alternative
Date:	27/05/09 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Better for you but tastes pretty much the same

Disadvantages: A tiny bit more expensive

I am young and my blood pressure is spot on. But with age comes responsibility and, as docs would have it, hypertension, so I do the sensible thing of trying to get into semi-good habits now. I say semi-good because a properly good habit would be to cut out virtually all the salt in my diet bar that little bit you need to keep functioning. I'm not that good, but in general I do eat very few processed foods and only add salt either in cooking or at the table - not both. And, when I am adding that salt, it is, nine times out of ten, lo salt.

Lo salt is not so much low in salt as it is low in sodium. Regular salt is sodium chloride, but lo salt is 66% potassium chloride and only a third NaCl. It's sodium salt that is bad for you, so by reducing that, the product becomes 'healthier'. Potassium is required by the body, and most people get less than their RDA, so it's not even as if you're replacing the bad stuff with a redundant filler - potassium has also been shown to reduce high blood pressure, so in that way the product is doubly good. Lo salt is currently the only widely available salt alternative in the UK, but since it's the only one, it can be found in virtually all large supermarkets and many smaller grocers.

Food ops irritate me at times, but luckily many 'features' lots of writers like to harp on about don't really factor in here. Lo salt is always white. And it's always salty. However so is regular salt, so you need a bit more information. If you change a recipe when you're cooking, it changes the taste, and the same thing applies here: altering the compound leads to an altered flavour. If you dribble it on your finger and then lick it off (and don't grimace because we've *all* done it), the taste seems a lot tangier than regular salt. A lot sharper. A lot more likely to induce a grimace (thus meaning I'll let you off if you've just done it and then grimaced when I told you not to). Added to boiling water when cooking pasta or similar, however, you can't really taste the difference. That's not to say you don't need it - pasta without salted water is like a brand new jar of Nutella without a spoon: what's the point? But, it fits in just as well as regular salt and so is a good substitution to make.

Lo salt only comes in granulated form. You can't buy rock lo salt (or lo rock salt) so it's unsuitable for salt mills that grind when you screw them or when you press a little button if you're really posh. However it comes in nice little tubs of varying sizes, all of which have big and little holes in the top bit for you to shake a lot or a little.

Lo salt is fat, protein, carbohydrate and calorie free, so next time the question comes up, you've an alternative to water to offer to the supremely fussy (best understood if you've ever seen the film 'A Cinderella Story'). If used in the same quantities as you would regular salt, it's better for you. Given the taste, I would use less if anything which makes it doubly good. You can use it wherever salt is used - for me that's mainly in pasta water though you can also use it in breadmakers (my next purchase with my dooyoo miles!), or when cooking vegetables etc. It behaves like regular salt (e.g. raising the boiling point of the water) so you don't have to learn to use it like the way you might have to learn how to drive a different make of car: if you can use one, you can use any where salt and its alternatives are concerned.

I use nothing but lo salt in my UK kitchen, though the regular stuff sits on my work surface in a giant salt grinder to keep my giant pepper mill company, and comes out for parties. If hypertension is a problem for you you've probably already heard of it, but if not, try it out, at least in cooking. 350g / 700g containers cost from under a pound, and even the smaller one lasts for ages.


http://www.losalt.com/ is a good site except when they tell you to add oil to cooking water for pasta which something I would never, EVER do.

Summary: Try it if you haven't already