Controlling for Salt

The seductive simplicity of salt underscores the cultural, economical, political, and social implications of reducing everyone’s sodium intake for the sake of public wellness.

There was always this hushed moment between my mother calling that dinner was ready and my father appearing beside her. He came into the kitchen with his glasses, sweatshirt, and his slippers gently shuffling on the floor after peeling himself away from watching a baseball game on TV or reading one of his books.

He would look over at my brothers and me to see if we had food on our plates and then ask my mother if she was eating. Once he confirmed everyone else had food he would agree to my mom making him a plate. My mom has always been a master cook and baker making nearly every meal we ate from scratch. Much of my childhood was fueled by steaming drumsticks fresh from the oven, Spanish rice the color of a sunset, beans cooked in a CrockPot with chunks of peppers and onions, salads, canned vegetables, fresh fruit, pasta bakes and fresh baked rolls. Nearly without fail if there was a meat my dad would always ask for salt or barbecue sauce. Sometimes he would simply go searching for it while my mom — visibly vexed and offended — watched him like a lioness observing zebras. Then she would pounce. “Did you even taste it first?” “Why are you adding salt?” “I always season the meal well.” “You don’t need any extra salt!” My dad would sometimes relent and not add either item to his meals. Other times he would say he just wanted “a little barbecue sauce.” He couldn’t always explain why he wanted salt.

The seductive simplicity of salt underscores the cultural, economical, political, and social implications of reducing everyone’s sodium intake for the sake of public wellness. The push to encourage at-home cooking, alongside the rise of meal prep videos on social media, has become an especially interesting part of modern day wellness culture. It’s a semi-toxic cycle of people inevitably arguing in the comments about whether the content creator properly seasoned the food and balking at the lack of salt. The salt shaming in social media content about food often dissolves into telling people they’re not healthy, fat shaming, skinny shaming,  accusations of disordered eating, and accusations that people don’t know how to cook. Then the content creator jumps in to defend their seasoning choices and encourages people to season to their own preference and peril. Salt is always a subjective sore spot of cooking and diet culture but we still haven’t agreed on what counts as too much or too little salt. Depending on who you ask sacrificing salt is either a necessary part of healthfulness or an outright denial of flavor. It’s moral judgment in a canister. 

But beyond the infighting among everyday consumers, lowering our collective salt intake has become a decades-long fight. In 1979, the United States Surgeon General issued a report urging Americans to slow their sodium intake amid the rise of cardiovascular issues, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. In 1988, another Surgeon General report said that “although sodium is necessary for normal metabolic function, it is consumed in the United States at levels far beyond the 1.1 to 3.3 grams per day found to be as safe and adequate for adults by the National Research Council.” At the time of that report, the average sodium intake for adults in the U.S. was between four and six grams per day, or 4,000 milligrams to 6,000 milligrams. In 2024, the Food and Drug Administration called for voluntary sodium targets for processed and restaurant foods over the next three years, with the goal of lowering Americans’ daily sodium intake from 3,400 milligrams to 2,750 milligrams. We’ve come a long way but as of June 2026, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found Americans are still consuming an average of more than 3,300 milligrams of sodium per day. 

I’ve only thought of reaching for salt in front of my mom a couple of times in my life. Between high blood pressure and high cholesterol coursing through veins across our family tree, my mom has always been adamant about the idea of “controlling for salt.” She uses salt when she cooks but she also prefers to supplement with fresh limes, lemons, bay leaves, garlic, onions, oregano, parsley, or cilantro alongside garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, or black pepper. Aside from my dad no one in the house felt a need to ask for salt because the food was flavorful. But my mom was also watchful of everyone’s salt intake. There was no salt shaker on the kitchen table because my mom guarded it inside the cupboard. If we made Top Ramen she was strict that we only use barely a quarter of the packet because it was too salty. If my mom used canned beans, rinsing them in the sink first was non-negotiable because you had to wash off the salt. Anything that came with a plastic baggie of pre-made sauce was always tossed. She was adamant that we should always want to be in control of how much salt is in our food. 

My relationship with salt over time and find myself oscillating between worrying about whether I’ve oversalted or undersalted a meal. I cook and bake just like my mom and find myself doing the mental calculations as I cook about what items already have salt in it. I shake my salt into the palm of my hand to visually see the sprinkle pile before putting it into my pots. Better to add as needed as opposed to pouring it straight into the pot from the container. I find myself standing in grocery store aisles, reading nutrition labels more closely and sounding like my mom quietly asking why things have so much sodium. Age and attempts at preventive measures has also changed my buying habits over time. I reach for no sodium broths, no sodium canned beans (I still rinse them), and no salt added diced tomatoes. I will settle for low sodium items but only if the shelves aren’t stocked with my no sodium staples. I’ve learned to be one with the low sodium green cap versions of my favorite soy sauces. At the same time, I’m also investing in my salts more deliberately with Maldon smoked salt and Diamond salt. Certain salts taste better but it’s a privilege to be able to weigh choices and have the economic means to act on them. It’s easy to forget that salt is actually not just salt when it comes to how it’s harvested, how it reaches our tables and who gets to access the most flavorful versions of it. Flavor is not a given in this economy.

But it seems we’re still reaching for salt because diet culture already demands so much. People will remove bread, pasta, and sweets from their diets for a set period of time or even for the long-term. They’ll stop buying chips to prevent temptation. They’ll buy the clear plastic containers and commit to meal prepping because eating the same thing over and over is discipline in action. The call to reduce sodium in processed foods is an ongoing policy effort that people are trying to move around by cooking at home and being in control of what ingredients they use. 

While the ferocity of salt debates has become a calling card for perceptions of healthiness, it has also highlighted how often diet culture still skews toward “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” sentiments. Beyond telling people to use less salt there’s also the broader implication of narratives around eating out of sheer necessity instead of flavor and enjoyment. Reduced fat, reduced sodium or seemingly bland foods are still a cornerstone of diet culture even as there’s pushback that healthy eating can be colorful, flavorful, and properly portioned. In addition, food access in your area also dictates what’s deemed affordable and unaffordable. It’s challenging to tell someone on a smaller income to eat less salt when the foods made to last in their pantries and stomachs may have higher sodium. Saltiness can also be a small comfort between meals. While salt is deeply integrated with how we eat it’s going to take many conversations in kitchens, around tables, and across systems to recalibrate our relationship with it as an ingredient and part of our food choices. 

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