Why is restaurant food ALWAYS so damned salty?

[hyphenate]

I rarely eat salt at all, and I hardly cook with it. If it's in the food I eat, I try to make sure it's not a very high number. But I tell you, I am coming to the conclusion that restaurants pack so much damned salt into their food as to make it nearly impossible to eat a lot of anything without consuming a horrendous amount of salt.

Last night went out to Bertucci's and had chicken parmagean. Whether it was the cheese on top or the chicken cutlets, something was making me wince everytime I took a bite out of it. I finally and politely had the waiter box everything, and whether I toss it or the cats get it is up in the air.

If we could only get these restaurants to use different spices and herbs to season food, it will be a miracle.

And I'll tell you what is scary--when people add even MORE salt at the table, without even tasting it!!

[Nikia]

1. I don't think that I have ever added salt at a restaurant table

Most processed food has a fair amount of salt, not only for flavor but also extending shelf life. I think that restaurants are trying to match that. I don't understand why people would add salt to already salty food though.

[Flaxbee]

2. have you checked the sodium content on most grocery-store food?

abso-freaking-lutely astronomical, too. I agree -- very very salty. Many restaurants do it so you drink more (hopefully alcohol, b/c alcohol sales generate HUGE amounts of revenue for restaurants). Others do it to cover possibly spoiled ingredients, and others do it out of laziness.

In frozen/boxed foods at the grocery store, it's used as a preservative and just as a (poor) substitute for flavoring/seasoning.

I rarely cook with it, either, and notice the salt content a lot when we go out.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

3. They'll sell more drinks that way...

:beer:

[Xipe Totec]

4. Salt enhances flavor

what little there is....

So bad food can always taste better, if you salt it to death...

:puke:

[Zookeeper]

5. Oh yeah, it's usually WAY too salty...

Chefs I have talked to said that's what most customers like. It makes the food taste better for the first few bites.

[graywarrior]

6. Because Americans are yang.

[Ghost in the Machine]

7. I own a restaurant and I use as little salt as possible, if at all.

We make homemade slaw, pinto beans, chili, soups, etc. and I only put a pinch in the slaw. I don't even salt my fries, unless someone orders seasoned fries. I have high blood pressure myself, and it seems a lot of people around here do too.

Two things that will never be served in my restaurant:
Canned chili
A frozen hamburger patty. I make 6oz. hand pattied burgers.

Ghost

[dEMOK]

13. Power to you - Ghost in the Machine...

Salt is laziness. If you want to get by with a minimal amount of effort & still get people to taste your food -- add the friggin salt!

If you want to create dishes that actually are complex in flavor -- learn to cook & add only a pinch (judiciously).

I've always been salt sensitive. Also, restaurateurs -- stop using prepared sauces! Get off your asses & make your own! The sodium crystallizes in the plate when it gets cold!

Don't change a thing Ghost.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

8. I can't stand it either.

Don't know why they can't make low salt frozen dinners for example.
I always read labels for Na and I get thoroughly disgusted. Why can't they make low salt versions of all the snack crackers, for example?

I get chunky soup and heat it up and cut it with sour cream, to make it less salty.

This last summer I went to a winery with a group of people and literally couldn't eat the dinner because everything was so salty. I don't drink alcohol either, so all I got out of it was a lot of iced tea!!

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

10. Amy's makes low-sodium frozen dinners.

They're also mostly organic.

I don't eat the low-sodium ones, but their regular ones are really good. They taste like real food.

[jpgray]

9. It's to offset the stick of butter in each entree

[amitten]

11. Never, ever go to Carraba's.

Pure unadulterated salt brine with a little food thrown in.

So salty it will later wake you from your sleep, groggily crazed for hydration. :scared:

[Tektonik]

12. around here it's usually not salty enough

it seems that every fast food place here the NW part of the San Fernando valley, puts nearly no salt on their fries, etc

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

14. Then add salt.

Problem solved.

[dEMOK]

15. Go to the south & get more salt than you ever wanted...

...or -- carry your own ;-)

[leftofthedial]

16. it's all the bodily fluids from the kitchen and wait staff

that ends up in restaurant food. You don't think that guacamole is really made from avocadoes do you?

[krispos42]

17. Haven't noticed

Of course, I eat a frighteningly large amount of salt, drink a frighteningly huge amount of diet cola, and consume a large amount of fast-food drive-thru.

The best part about that was the look on my boss's face when I told him what my chlosteral was. He's 35 years Army, keeps himself fit, eats a lot of yogurt, fruit, and healthy sandwiches on whole wheat bread. And lots of water.

Mine is 157. His response was a slack-jawed "The way YOU eat?!?!?!?" :evilgrin:

"Yup,", I grinned, crunching on a Dorito.

[Patiod]

18. I think chain restaurants use a lot of pre-packaged foods

that are saltier -- canned sauces, etc.

I could be wrong about this.

I don't usually eat in chains (because where I live, we don't have to) but if I'm traveling and that's what's available, the food tastes salty to me too.