Most people who try to cut salt at home remove it from the wrong places. They cook with less salt, notice the loss immediately, and give up within a fortnight — while the biggest contributors were never in the cooking at all.

Where the sodium is really coming from

  • Soy sauce, dark and light — a single tablespoon of light soy carries a substantial slice of a day's sodium
  • Stock cubes, which are almost entirely salt by design
  • Oyster sauce, fish sauce and chilli sauce, often used on top of soy rather than instead of it
  • Processed meat: sausages, nuggets, luncheon meat and most ham
  • Instant noodles and their seasoning sachets, including at breakfast
  • Salt-preserved vegetables and salted fish, which are used as flavour rather than as the dish

The point of the acid, the aromatics and the garnish is that they make a lower-salt dish taste finished. A dish that tastes like the salt is missing is a dish the household will abandon. A dish cooked with ginger, garlic, white pepper and lime tastes of the dish rather than of what was removed.

You cannot lower the household's salt by cooking differently and leave the soy bottle where it was.

Questions readers ask

How long before it makes any difference?
Taste adjusts in about two to three weeks, which is the hardest stretch — the food tastes flat until then. Blood pressure changes vary with the individual, so if you are measuring at home, keep measuring and bring the numbers to your doctor. Do not stop or change any blood pressure medicine on the strength of a home reading.
Is salt substitute a good idea?
For some people, and not for others. Most salt substitutes replace sodium with potassium, which is a problem if you have kidney disease or are on medicines that raise potassium. Ask your doctor before using one, and treat it as a medical question rather than a grocery one.

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