Did the wartime generation salt their food more than we do today?

Yes, I think people did use lots of salt. I have to follow a low sodium diet as my kidneys cannot deal with excess salt. I don’t cook with it, I use herbs and spices for flavour instead. I don’t add it to my plate either. I think people are becoming more aware of how much salt there is in processed foods.

I have a Sunday morning ritual of two soft boiled eggs for breakfast. I couldn't eat them without salt.

It is a balance, like everthing else. You will make yourself ill with too little salt, which is just as bad for you as too much. Think about it, we do need some salt, the first treatment any emergency will receive is a saline drip!

Apart from hidden salt in foods there’s so much sugar in some savoury foods as well eg ketchup, baked beans etc.

I mistakenly bought 3 tins of reduced sugar baked beans. I’ll be honest, they were tasteless. The 2 unopened tins are still lurking in the back of the cupboard and won’t come out unless I’m stuck.

Most definitely they used more salt. I shop for my father who is in his 90s and I am astounded at how often I have to get him another packet of salt. He has now swapped his salt pot on the table for a bowl of salt which he sprinkles liberally over any meal. (Not the posh salt, just ordinary table salt.) Occasionally I tell him he shouldn’t be having so much salt but mostly I manage to restrain myself and think that he’s got to a grand old age and if he enjoys it then let him carry on. I think this over his alcohol consumption too.

My mum salted everything as she believed it was good for you. On a very hot day she would say you need some salt!

My mother used to add salt to vegetables when boiling, and rubbed on a pork joint, as well as lots added to potatoes and with a boiled egg! I use no salt in cooking and only really have a dash of salt with chips or roast potatoes.
As a child I used to take the salt cellar, tip salt into my hand and eat it like that? despite this I suffer from low blood pressure now rather than high? I use spices a lot in my cooking so don’t miss salt although my mothers cooking was heavily spiced too!

Lots of old sayings on here bringing back memories of home. I use salt in the water to cook vegetables - I’m sure one of the chefs (Jamie or Ina Garten) said to use plenty as you’re only salting the water and very little migrates into the food.
I’ve gone from very low BP and a recommendation to eat more salt to high BP and to cut it out - can’t win these days?

Anyone use unsalted butter? Just unpleasant grease to me.

If you observe people in cafes it's the older ones who shake loads of salt over everything, I think out of habit. I watched a guy shaking a salt grinder all over his plate. Nothing came out, obviously, but he still ate his food!

Food was much blander surely - my mother was an adventurous cook but even she would not have heard of half of what I have in my spice cupboard!
Think of what constituted a hotel dining room “meal out” - Brown Windsor soup, overcooked roast beef or lamb, soggy vegetables and maybe trifle (with Sherry if particularly daring- in fact it would be called “ Sherry trifle” !)
My father always added salt so Mum used to cut down on seasoning her cooking to compensate.
People also smoked more and I genuinely think this affects ones sense of taste.
Another difference would have been that prepared food was not available (other than a Fray Bentos pie) and we use “convenience” items much more - have you ever looked closely at the ingredients?
So in a word, “Yes” they were less aware of the dangers of salt but perhaps different lifestyles (more physical wok, walking etc) meant that it was not as harmful as in today’s sedentary society.

Oh yes! Georgesgran unsalted butter is horrible. Sometimes they serve it in cafes with toast or a scone! ?

I wonder if they used even more in Elizabethan times? Thin Shakespeare and King Lear!

I remember people putting salt on the edge of their plate as quite widespread, and I still find many unsalted food bland. However I also noticed when I visited a friend in the USA that all their food tasted very salty, sometimes totally spoiling the taste.
We DID have herbs during the war, but we grew our own. Most of Mum's spices were years old!

One of my earliest memories is learning to eat a boiled egg. I must have been about three and we were living in Egypt.

Dad would take the top off the egg and sprinkle a couple of pinches of salt on the side of the plate. It was important to have salt in our diets so I learned to dip my bread soldier in the salt and then into the egg.

Looking back I don't think my mother bothered much with salt in cooking once we returned to the UK when I was twelve. My grandmother, on the other hand, was heavy handed and there would be salt and pepper all over the tablecloth at the end of a meal. Grandpa was never very accurate with his aim so bouts of sneezing were not uncommon

When I married I added salt to water for boiling potatoes but for some reason we only bothered with the salt and pepper shakers (wedding presents of course) on a Sunday.

Nowadays I rarely add salt to anything due to DH's health issues. I mostly steam or stir fry vegetables and use low sodium stock cubes for casseroles.

I don't understand why TV chefs add so much salt to dishes. James Martin just shrugs and says, 'I'm from Yorkshire,' as though that gives him some kind of immunity from high blood pressure and heart disease. Well, it doesn't!

Good point about smoking, Maw. I hadn't thought about that. My father and grandfather both smoked pipes. Their tastebuds must have been affected.

Maybe what we now see as excess use of salt goes back to the days when the majority of people did hard manual labour (yes, I know, some still do) and walked everywhere meaning they needed the salt to compensate for sweating? As has already been mentioned, salt was used as a preservative pre general freezer ownership. Were people just accustomed to the salt taste? It is relatively recent that the health dangers of salt have been recognised.
I don’t use salt in cooking but, I must have salt on chips. I eat them so rarely, I doubt it will do me much harm.

inishowen

My mum salted everything as she believed it was good for you. On a very hot day she would say you need some salt!

Wimbledon tennis players were routinely given salt tablets too.
Wonder if that's still the case?

I think there was more salt used long ago and it was added when cooking. Mary Berry uses this technique apparently. Think we have become frightened to salt when cooking in case it's overdone. Recall reading Gordon Ramsay told Joan Collins to leave his restaurant when she asked for salt and pepper for the food she was eating. His philosophy he had cooked it as it should be.

My mum and grannies used to always put salt in boiling pots of potatoes & veg. I don't salt while cooking, but do over my dins as most things taste nicer with a wee drop in it...bad I know. My granda had greenhouses of tomatoes when I was a child and there was always salt cellars sitting in them so when you picked a fresh tomato you could cover it in salt!

Off point a bit but my family lived in Egypt too merlot Gran! so I grew up with a lot of Middle Eastern cooking as well as the French and Italian foods of my family

This thread has opened my eyes to salt! I routinely bring out the salt shaker at dinner time and add it to the meal without tasting first. Clearly it is a habit of a lifetime which I must now attempt to break. Now that I think about it, none of my three daughters even own a salt shaker and when we eat there we automatically ask for salt?.I’m surprised we haven’t been lectured about our terrible salt habit.

Now don't add salt during cooking process
Stopped whilst weaning my children.
Consequently my children don't add salt to food.

I do add salt to porridge, after its cooked.

My father in law always had a mound of salt on side of his plate. He never sprinkled salt over his meal.

When suffering night cramps especially during pregnancy I would eat a packet of salted crisps daily.

I never miss salt.
However I do like my food to have plenty of black pepper.

I'm sure they did, I seem to remember salt was liberally applied to food and was ever present on the table in what was quaintly known as the cruet when I was growing up. Then somewhere along the line, between childhood and my parents visiting me in my own home as an adult the salt had been banished as they had got wind of the fact that it hardened the arteries I still love a bit of sea salt on certain food items and love salty tasting things such as anchovies and certain cheeses, but try to rein it in mindful of the fact that it's not really good for us

I think food tasted better because it wasn't mass produced. Salt does flavour food but, like sugar, if you stop using it, your taste buds adjust so eventually more salt or sugar just tastes horrible. When you look at how much water is added to meat, vegetables that no longer have the same amount of vitamins and how quickly our meat is grown, it is no wonder things don't taste the same.

Yes! My father used to have two boiled eggs for breakfast and I can remember he used to take the top off each egg and fill the space at the top with salt. Then he'd wink at me because my mother fought a constant battle to reduce his salt intake. 'Only cannibals don't salt their food,' he'd murmer digging in. Lovely man; at his funeral one of the wreaths read To the Nicest Bloke I Ever Met. Great epitaph for anyone.

I put a small amount of salt in the pan when cooking veg, but if DH does the cooking it is inedible as he puts so much in. He always adds it to his plate without tasting, though it did occur to me that I often have gravy whilst he rarely does, so I get more salt that way, but I try to keep it low.