Shaking up salt: Taste rules in recipes, but nutrition wags a finger

'SALT to taste."

I came to dread those words when I started cooking from recipes. Each ingredient - herbs and spices included - would be spelled out to the pinch, but not this key item.

Is that the best you have to offer a novice, I would grumble at the cookbook, as I reached for the salt shaker and gave the dish a shot - or two or three.

Years later, I'm still salting to taste, although with more confidence. But the question still lingers: Isn't there a better, more precise way to determine how much salt is too much, too little or just right.

Turns out there isn't.

"Salting and figuring out the amount of salting is the most difficult thing to do, because everybody's taste level is different," said veteran local chef and author Aliza Green, whose books include "The Field Guide to Herbs & Spices."

That said, there are some benchmarks to figure out what types of dishes need more salt and which require a lighter hand.

Generally, less is certainly more with salt, according to Katie Cavuto Boyle, a registered dietitian and owner of Healthy Bites Nutrition and Personal Chef Services in Philadelphia.

"I always recommend that you underseason because you can always add more," said Cavuto Boyle, a recent competitor on TV's "The Next Food Network Star." "Once you add too much, you can't take it out."

Remember that salt's role is to sharpen, not blunt, flavors.

"It's an accent, an underline, to give it an edge when something's very round and you want to sharpen it up a little," Green said.

A dish's ingredients also factor in determining the balance of salt to other flavors.

Dishes containing salty products such as olives, capers, anchovies or cured meats start off with a higher level of salt and will need less at the finish line.

"If the recipe calls to be adding those [ingredients], you have to make a judgment call not to salt it until after you've added that product," said Charles Ziccardi, culinary arts program manager at Drexel University's Goodwin College School of Technology and Professional Studies.

"The other factor is what happens the next day. Sometimes salt develops overnight. You have to allow the salt flavor to develop."

Whenever you can, skip the prepared foods - jarred simmer sauces, canned soups and the like, said restaurateur and author Delilah Winder, whose businesses include her signature stall in the Reading Terminal Market.

"With Delilah's and my personal cooking, I try to make everything from scratch - I don't go to cans or packaged foods," Winder said. "That way you don't have buried salt."

Sodium in cooking especially resonates with Winder, who is African-American, because blacks have higher rates of heart disease and diabetes, and a high salt diet can exacerbate both conditions.

Both of Winder's parents have had high blood pressure and her father died of heart disease. Winder, 58, credits her decision to use less salt in her Southern-style cuisine as helping to steer her away from those problems.

"I'm very fortunate, but I know that my diet is very different," Winder said.

Although expert opinion differs on the impact of salt on one's overall well-being, it's something healthy people should keep on their nutritional radars.

The average daily recommendation for salt intake is 2,300 milligrams, according to the federal government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Yet one 8-ounce serving of canned soup can have more than 800 milligrams of salt.

"Salt is an overall concern in all of the cooking I do," Cavuto Boyle said. "A lot of traditional restaurant chefs might think some of the food I create is undersalted."

Her rule of thumb is one pinch of salt per serving, but Drexel's Ziccardi said it's up to every cook to figure out his or her salt "line."

"There's no good living on bland food," Ziccardi said. "Understanding the perfect taste is a chef's responsibility and a cook's responsibility. Of course, you're going to have people who are going to grab that salt shaker."

Like any nutritional choice, how much salt you use with your cooking should be viewed in context of your overall eating patterns.

"I avoid processed foods and a lot of it is in there," Green said. "If I don't use packaged this and packaged that, I can season it the way I want."

If you're concerned about your food lacking pop, these professionals have a number of tricks to add flavor without salt.

"I like to use a lot of garlic. I like to use a lot of onions. I like to use a lot of thyme," said Winder, author of "Delilah's Everyday Soul: Southern Cooking with Style." "My macaroni and cheese has little or no salt in it, because the salt is in the cheese, so we don't need to add it."

Cavuto Boyle finds zest in - citrus zest and juice, as well as plentiful fresh herbs and fresh ingredients. If she does use canned stock, she picks a low-sodium version; when including canned beans, she rinses them with water to diminish any added salt.

"Taking a whole-foods approach and eating unprocessed foods in their most natural state is the best way to eat in general to be free of additives and preservatives," she said.

One area of cuisine in which the salt is prescribed is baking. Salt plays a specific role in the chemistry of a baking recipe, and it's even become trendy to up the salt to contrast with the sugar.

"It's like salted caramels," Green said. "If they're just sweet, they're boring. If they have a little bit of salt, it perks up the palate."

Although it's not likely - or necessary - for us to put away the salt completely, anecdotal evidence suggests a shift is under way.

"We have salt and pepper shakers on the table - we don't have to fill the salt as much any more," Winder observed. "People are using the pepper more - people are getting it."

Robert DiGiacomo is a Philadelphia-based writer.