h a l f b a k e r yThis is what happens when one confuses "random" with "profound."
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And how would this work?
Bind the ions somehow?
Too bad the sodium itself will
remain (unless you vaporize it or
something), so even if it doesn't
taste salty any more, it's still
bad for you... |
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Yes you can. If you over-salt a soup or stew, add some chopped potatoes. They will absorb some of the salt. At the end of cooking, remove the potatoes and throw them away. |
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Dunno -- the potato thing sounds like a kitchen legend to me. Why would potatoes absorb salt preferentially over water? Osmotic considerations say that they would actually leach water rather than absorbing anything. If that's the case, why not just add water and forget the spuds? Time for a double-blind trial (or ask Cecil of the Straight Dope). |
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I didn't say they absorb salt preferentially over water - they just absorb salt, and you can remove them at the end of cooking. If you just add water you end up with watery stew which still contains the same amount of salt as before. |
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Dessicants like silica gel absorb
water better than potatoes do.
But do they absorb the salt with
the water? (Probably; as ``Litter
Pearls'', they absorb all the
components in cat urine just fine.) |
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So, (1) add silica gel to your food,
(2) add (non-salty) water to replace
the salt water absorbed by the silica,
(3) remove the silica gel? |
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I guess (3) might be tricky. What
happens if you use silica gel in large
(potato-sized) chunks? |
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Well, I don't think I want silica gel in my stew at all, not even for a minute or two.There must be some reason it says DO NOT EAT on the package. |
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It says DO NOT EAT because silica gel is hygroscopic. You really don't want to put hygroscopic material into your body, do you? But once it's "done", it's no longer hygroscopic. |
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I've used sugar to remove the salty taste for years (it's a sort of salt antagonist) doesn't remove the sodium though. Shame it can't be made to come out of soluion by converting it to an insoluble salt. |
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Why not just avoid salt in the first place? I wish my nan would when she's cooking..... |
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Recapping: The trouble with adding water to the stew to make it less salty is that the stew will become watery; The trouble with adding potatoes or silica gel to absorb salt, and then removing the potatoes or silica gel, is that they will remove ingredients other than water and salt, thus altering the flavour of the stew. |
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The solution then, to counter the effect of the salt, must be to add additional quantities of *all* of the other ingredients. This will neutralise the salt, but have the side effect of producing much more stew than originally required, which in turn, can be solved by inviting me round to dinner. |
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..or one
stores it all in the freezer.
Then reheat parts of each stew together.
An infinite amount of unsalted stew and a big freezer
could so reduce
99.99999999999999...% of salt in the first salty one !
...and you don't have to invite anyone |
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philosophus: my soul mates agree with the addition of sugar, but brown sugar, mind you. |
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You could actually find someway to break the Na-Cl bond and bond the chlorine to something else, leaving the sodium by itself... then add water and you get an explosion! Sweet! Not only that, breaking the Na-Cl bond would produce heat, which would automatically warm your food up! |
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Are you saying that the salt and anti-salt would mutually annihilate? |
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yeah. um-- anti-salt. that's just neat. i'm all for it. |
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All you need is a scanner to scan out the NaCl molecule. |
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Since salt is potentially harmful I think that it is good that food tastes salty when it contains large amount of salt. If their really were an anti-salt you could probably kill somebody by giving them large amounts of salt and use anti-salt to counterbalance the taste. |
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Oops. Shows how thoroughly I searched before posting my version of this... |
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I see this has been baked for ages. Oh goody. |
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Ah, but [dgeiser], this compound
removes the salt, rather than just
masking the taste. You could
conceivably give someone anti-
salt poisoning, though, by adding
a huge amount of anti-salt,
followed by enough salt to make it
taste right (think about it and
you'll get it). |
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Perhaps a capsule of fake lithium
(q.v. fake electrons) could be used
to trick the chlorine into releasing
its bond to the sodium. Water is
added to clear up the sodium. The
chlorine, confused at having been
tricked, wanders off in a daze,
leaving lovely salt-free food. |
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I thought about all this decades ago. Too bad the only real answer is... beyond all of us. |
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salt collecting nanobots? |
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Dialysis ? Ion exchange ? Osmosis ? |
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What produces the "salt" taste, the sodium ions or the chloride ions ? |
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How about a flexible plastic sheet studded liberally with granules of silica gel? Place it on top of the food, leave it for a short while, then lift it off again and spray the food with water. |
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//I was going to suggest electrolysis, but that might get a bit dangerous what with sodium and the water// |
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If you think the sodium is dangerous, consider the chlorine gas it would produce. |
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will this also nullify the corrosive salt action on my car parts? |
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Hint: do not dip car parts in your soup |
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8/7, given that people on salt-restricted diets are able to use potassium chloride as a salt substitute, without any significant difference in flavor, I would have to guess that it's the chloride part that produces the "salty" flavor. |
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Which rock-and-roll band fronted by Alvin Lee does this idea now resemble ? |
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Potassium chloride tastes quite different than sodium chloride. It's sort of "cold" tasting, hard to describe exactly. It must be the combination of chloride and sodium ions that gives salt its taste. |
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One thing that is *really* worth trying - especially in soups, gravies and sauces in general is to eschew salt in favour of...anchovies. |
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The immediate benefit is that if you add too many anchovies to your dish, it's relatively easy, due to their size to "fish" them out if, inadvertently, you manage to slip a few too many in. |
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Not only do they impart a distinctly savoury flavour, but one that is deeper and richer than in a non-anchovy seasoned dish - it quite possibly contains a bit of this "umami" - the mysterious 5th flavour. Also (and I've not tried this since it's millennia old) I wouldn't mind tasting some Roman "garum" - another condiment that might benefit from reintroduction over salt. |
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//Dessicants like silica gel absorb water better than potatoes do. But do they absorb the salt with the water? (Probably; as ``Litter Pearls'', they absorb all the components in cat urine just fine.) |
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So, (1) add silica gel to your food, (2) add (non-salty) water to replace the salt water absorbed by the silica, (3) remove the silica gel?
// |
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Just remember to keep the one's you've used to absorb cat pee in a different container. |
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I don't know [normzone], which rock-and-roll band
fronted by Alvin Lee does this idea now resemble ? |
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[lemon] - have you been waiting all that time to post that? |
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It's always good to stop before posting a question, and consider if you already know the answer. |
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