Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I teach cooking classes and it always amuses me when I salt a dish oftentimes accompanied by gasps from the students. Processed foods contain salt. Lots of it. "Scratch cooking" typically involves no salt. Salt brightens and livens up food in much the same way as a pat of butten richens a sauce or a squeeze of lemon brights out the flavor of vegetables. For those of you who defy anyone to tell the difference, who don't use salt or who don't taste as you go along, do it just one time. You might be a convert. I have a basket of plastic spoons and when I salt and taste and adjust, I have the students do the same thing. Most nod their heads in agreement that "that last pinch did it" and "it is definitely better now". But if you never salt or have just decided that salt is bad, you will always disagree. My grandmother salted, my mom salts and I salt. My grandmother and all of her sisters lived into their 90's. They also ate real butter and heavy cream and made their own bread. Desserts were commonplace. They walked to the market and didn't buy mac and cheese from a box, pizza from a carton and processed sugar coated cereal when they got there. The high sodium count in these "foods" is because the salt is used not as a flavor enhancer but as a preservative. Eliminate those things from your diet and salt your food!