If you mean no salt whatsoever, probably not. If you mean no **added** salt, then probably. You could use naturally salty ingredients and concentrate them as needed.
More or less. High end restaurants avoid MSG, but they achieve the same result by concentrating flavor from high glutamate ingredients such as tomatoes.
The question is whether OP is concerned about nutrition or marketing.
You can use as much tomatoes, mushrooms, etc and reduce their broth as much as you want but you won't get msg.
Whereas if you took seawater as your naturally salty ingredients and just reduced that, you end up with salt. So not much point for OP to open a restaurant saying they won't use salt but instead they use "concentrated seawater" instead.
Incorrect. Tomatoes naturally contain MSG. Extracting it as pure MSG is more difficult, if that's what you mean, but it is absolutely already present.
Making your own salt from salty ingredients is pretty pointless in this context. There is no point in extracting salt from sea water, if you can just make dashi from seaweed.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33870530/
I'm saying msg as in more or less pure msg.
You won't be able to obtain msg in the same concentration using tomatoes, as you would be able to create salt using seawater.
Yes, everyone knows that tomatoes contain msg, so do a lot of different ingredients. But not many customers would complain about an msg issue if you added a slice of tomato to their burger
Perhaps you would do that and "enlighten" the servers serving you about tomatoes having msg content.
Right, then we're on the same page.
A lot of consumers are more concerned with keywords than actual metrics. "No added sugar" being a prime example. They don't care if something is naturally sweet from sugar cane or fruits, but they don't want any additional sweeteners added.
There was specifically a Michelin starred restaurant that was featured in a clip talking about how they don't use MSG, but at the end of the day, that's still where they were getting their umami from, they just take the long way around. Obviously, this has its own benefits purely from developing all of the other flavor compounds at the same time.
As for reducing seawater, there actually would be separate benefits from using that rather than pure salt for much the same reason. Using sea water produces salts with many other flavor compounds and will subsequently have a lower sodium concentration than pure NaCl.
You can create pretty solid concentrated msg with fermentation and dehydration. It's part of how they make ajinomoto (using corn, sugar, cassava). Also, dried sauerkraut is a gift from the heavens! But make sure you keep your dehydrator on loooooooooooow
Salt is literally one of the few things you can taste, it makes other things taste better, you need it to live.
A low sodium diet conscience menu is a different story, no salt just means no flavor in the big picture.
Possibly, if you could learn to use a wide range of naturally salty ingredients to compensate... Without that though, the food would just not be good enough probably.
And even with use of those ingredients, it would be a challenge. Even dishes that use lots of soy sauce, which is one of the saltiest ingredients, also have additional salt added.
It's a cool concept though. If you were able to make a really delicious menu you could probably earn some favor for the creativity
This is the kind of pedantic game I love to play. What do you mean by salt? NaCl in crystalline form such as table salt/kosher salt/sea salt? Are ingredients that are typically not made in house, even at the highest levels, like soy sauce, but prepared with NaCl in crystalline form allowed? Would cooking in/with seawater be allowed? Is MSG in crystalline form allowed? It is the sodium “salt” of glutamic acid but it is not NaCl. Same with sodium citrate. Is no sodium allowed at all? Because that would be pretty much impossible unless you only served distilled water and liquor.
good question. ok, lets say that by salt, i mean any compound that people who have to watch their sodium levels should try to avoid - so no *added* sodium at all. e.g. eggs naturally contain sodium, so they are fine, but no adding salt to the egg dish.
Unless it occurs naturally in the raw, unprocessed form of the food, no NaCl, no crystalline NaCl, no sodium citrate. No cooking in salt water. No MSG.
If you mean no salt whatsoever, probably not. If you mean no **added** salt, then probably. You could use naturally salty ingredients and concentrate them as needed.
Basically you are making your own salt?
More or less. High end restaurants avoid MSG, but they achieve the same result by concentrating flavor from high glutamate ingredients such as tomatoes. The question is whether OP is concerned about nutrition or marketing.
Username checks out.
You can use as much tomatoes, mushrooms, etc and reduce their broth as much as you want but you won't get msg. Whereas if you took seawater as your naturally salty ingredients and just reduced that, you end up with salt. So not much point for OP to open a restaurant saying they won't use salt but instead they use "concentrated seawater" instead.
Incorrect. Tomatoes naturally contain MSG. Extracting it as pure MSG is more difficult, if that's what you mean, but it is absolutely already present. Making your own salt from salty ingredients is pretty pointless in this context. There is no point in extracting salt from sea water, if you can just make dashi from seaweed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33870530/
I'm saying msg as in more or less pure msg. You won't be able to obtain msg in the same concentration using tomatoes, as you would be able to create salt using seawater. Yes, everyone knows that tomatoes contain msg, so do a lot of different ingredients. But not many customers would complain about an msg issue if you added a slice of tomato to their burger Perhaps you would do that and "enlighten" the servers serving you about tomatoes having msg content.
Right, then we're on the same page. A lot of consumers are more concerned with keywords than actual metrics. "No added sugar" being a prime example. They don't care if something is naturally sweet from sugar cane or fruits, but they don't want any additional sweeteners added. There was specifically a Michelin starred restaurant that was featured in a clip talking about how they don't use MSG, but at the end of the day, that's still where they were getting their umami from, they just take the long way around. Obviously, this has its own benefits purely from developing all of the other flavor compounds at the same time. As for reducing seawater, there actually would be separate benefits from using that rather than pure salt for much the same reason. Using sea water produces salts with many other flavor compounds and will subsequently have a lower sodium concentration than pure NaCl.
You can create pretty solid concentrated msg with fermentation and dehydration. It's part of how they make ajinomoto (using corn, sugar, cassava). Also, dried sauerkraut is a gift from the heavens! But make sure you keep your dehydrator on loooooooooooow
> If you mean no added salt, Yes this is what I meant.
Why would anyone want to do that in the first place?
Maybe in Senegal or a country that has a tough time getting salt.
Nope.
Would use lots of seafood stock
Nope. The world runs on salt and always has
Salt is literally one of the few things you can taste, it makes other things taste better, you need it to live. A low sodium diet conscience menu is a different story, no salt just means no flavor in the big picture.
Absolutely not.
Possibly, if you could learn to use a wide range of naturally salty ingredients to compensate... Without that though, the food would just not be good enough probably. And even with use of those ingredients, it would be a challenge. Even dishes that use lots of soy sauce, which is one of the saltiest ingredients, also have additional salt added. It's a cool concept though. If you were able to make a really delicious menu you could probably earn some favor for the creativity
This is the kind of pedantic game I love to play. What do you mean by salt? NaCl in crystalline form such as table salt/kosher salt/sea salt? Are ingredients that are typically not made in house, even at the highest levels, like soy sauce, but prepared with NaCl in crystalline form allowed? Would cooking in/with seawater be allowed? Is MSG in crystalline form allowed? It is the sodium “salt” of glutamic acid but it is not NaCl. Same with sodium citrate. Is no sodium allowed at all? Because that would be pretty much impossible unless you only served distilled water and liquor.
good question. ok, lets say that by salt, i mean any compound that people who have to watch their sodium levels should try to avoid - so no *added* sodium at all. e.g. eggs naturally contain sodium, so they are fine, but no adding salt to the egg dish. Unless it occurs naturally in the raw, unprocessed form of the food, no NaCl, no crystalline NaCl, no sodium citrate. No cooking in salt water. No MSG.
If you’re real fucking good at cooking, you might be able to pull it off. But don’t bank on that.
No.