Is salt substitute a good alternative to table salt?

What salt substitute? Can you post a link?

Yes, but, not if you have to watch your potassium intake. Salt substitutes are high in potassium. Otherwise, it’s fine to use in place of table salt.

The salt substitute I am useing is made by Mortan*..thats is all I can tell you.

This?

@TheOnlyNeffie So then do you know how the salt substitute is better for you in place of salt than sea salt?

Well, for someone watching their sodium intake, switching from table salt to sea salt would have no effect. Table salt and sea salt have basically the same nutritional value. Salt substitute is not actually salt.

@TheOnlyNeffie Huh. So, then, when it says on sea salt labels that it’s good for a low-sodium diet, they’re lying?? Not that they’d be the first people to mislead customers about the nutritional value

I could be wrong about sea salt.

@papayalily and @TheOnlyNeffie Sea salt and table salt have the same amount of sodium.

If you need to watch your sodium intake, a salt substitute should be fine. Personally, I’ve never found one I could tolerate the taste of, and have just preferred to do without altogether when necessary.

@augustlan Ahhh! Damn. Well, thanks for the info.

@papayalily “when it says on sea salt labels that it’s good for a low-sodium diet, they’re lying??”
Yes, they are. And in the UK they’re not allowed to claim that.
Potassium substitutes can be as bad for you as ordinary salt, especially if you have kidney problems.

You dont need to use as much sea salt as you do mortons. thus decreasing sodium

Use salt free blends and get the taste from other herbs. There are great blends at www.penzeys.com

Don’t forget you can use vinegar or lemon juice as a tasty salt substitute!

Sea salt and regular Morton’s salt have the exact amount of sodium. The reason it says that you can have a low sodium diet with the sea salt is because it tastes better (no iodine aftertaste) and they are guessing that you will use less. You probably won’t use less though and if you are on a restricted sodium diet, you should never add salt to your food and you should actively look at the sodium content on the labels of every food that you purchase.

So YES, the sentence is a lie based on the assumption that people will eat less salt with their product.

People with high blood pressure, heart disease and other conditions that need to be treated with a low sodium diet need to keep their daily intake of sodium between 1200 and 1800 mg of sodium per day. When you look at the sodium content of a food (per serving) you should try to find products that have 140 mg or less (preferably way less). Then you have to add those mgs up each day. For example, if you take a teaspoon of mustard that has 90 mg of sodium per that teaspoon of mustard and you simply eat one more teaspoon, then you have doubled your sodium intake from 90 to 180 mg’s just for that tiny little bit of mustard. You have to be really careful and pay close attention to the real serving size.

My dad recently had open heart surgery and I became the unofficial dietary task master for him. He never reads labels and doesn’t like most foods that are on the permitted list. If left to his own devices he would have been eating 10 to 20 times the amount of sodium that he was supposed to be eating.

The first thing I did was to get rid of the offending items (in the pantry and fridge) and to start using real measuring spoons to dole out “servings”. You can easily, accidentally double your serving sizes by assuming that your flatware has proper sizes for teaspoons and Tablespoons. They usually are not of any exact size. You need to use real measuring spoons.

Now I read labels constantly. You’d be surpised how many food items, including those that don’t taste salty at all, like bread or ice cream, canned vegetables, pasta sauce, salsa etc. that are loaded with sodium. Sometimes more than half a day’s worth. Most processed foods (canned, boxed and frozen) are extremely high in sodium, as are restaurant meals. I purposely buy things that are listed at having no added salt and those that have a per serving quantity that has 140 mg or less of sodium.

And when I cook, I use all sorts of other things such as herbs and spices and fruit juices, vinegar and peppers. I never add salt to anything. The salt substitute is not the best idea, because it makes your taste buds still crave salt and it is very high in potassium, which can be bad for some folks. You’re better off weaning yourself off the salt and acquiring new tastes. Once you’ve been off the salt for a few months, products containing salt will taste way too salty for you. Yuck!

Here’s some great information from the American Heart Association all about sodium intake and how to avoid it and what other foods you can eat to replace salt in your diet and guides on how to keep track of your sodium intake etc. Their guide says you should keep your sodium intake to 1500 mgs per day.

Not for me. I like salt and use it. I have no health problems. If I can’t use the real thing I never use this kind of substitute.

Pepper.
Ground gourmet pepper.
I have learned to not use salt using pepper instead.

@papayalily @TheOnlyNeffie @augustlan It is true that table salt and sea salt have the same amount of sodium by weight, but I find that the differences in flavor allow me to use less sea salt than table salt. That could be an idiosyncratic thing, however, and it probably isn’t enough of a difference for people who seriously need to cut down on their sodium intake for health reasons.

In a way yes.We all need salt in our bodies but we get sufficient amounts everyday in the distinct foods we eat anyway.So to answer your question,the answer is yes.salt can be bad for you if used daily to improve the taste of foods.So a substitute is the way to go if your always adding salt to taste.High blood pressure can be a results to using too much table salt.Hope this helps.