I eat healthy, basically no sugar. I don't even have a sugar bowl anymore and never buy it. Whatever I get it's in the food and fruit I eat. My big culprit is salt. I love it and even put it on watermelon, tomatoes, and apples. I like heavy course pink Himalayan salt which I grind out liberally. My one vice.

Not much. My salt mill holds a little over three oz., and I probably refill it every 2-3 months. Certain things, like eggs, get salt, and if it's called for in a recipe. DH puts it on his popcorn. Otherwise, not much. We go through quite a bit of black pepper.

I don't need much salt in my food to bring the taste right, but DH OTOH seems to required a bit more for taste. I use iodized salt from a shaker, and usually only a little sprinkle on cooked veggies, unless a main course is very bland.

DH has a grinder with pink Himalayan salt on the table, and another of coarse sea salt next to the stove. None are very big, and each probably gets refilled maybe 2 or 3 times a year.

Of course we use salt in cooking and baking in the kitchen. I tend to hold back and add later, DH is more generous when he cooks.

Pepper is where DH really goes crazy though....

I only use kosher salt, and keep it in a salt pig or bowl by the stove. A box of Morton's kosher will easily last a year. I pinch it. I do add to things I am cooking (from scratch) and on fresh veggies like tomatoes or watermelon. We had visitors last fall and they looked around for a salt shaker on the table, and I explained that I don't have one. And they probably didn't know what to think when I brought out the bowl, and invited them to pinch.

We have a salt and pepper shaker set that only gets used by my parents when they visit. I have a small salt cellar filled with sea salt, but I rarely use it. I tend to season with lemon and pepper instead of salt.

Lily316, I wish I could give up sugar, but I love gelato too much to even try.

Very little. Sea salt when cooking meat/seafood, serving eggs, and on homemade vinaigrette-dressed salads. Not really used on anything else.

I've been baking alot more bread since retirement (a loaf or two per week), so I use alot more salt. Low-salt bread doesn't taste right and it doesn't brown, it remains a sickly pale color. Cutting back as much as I can per loaf, I still use up a 1 lb 10 oz canister of Morton's in a year.

I wouldn't say that I eat a lot of salt....don't use prepared foods much at all. Don't eat chips or salty snacks hardly ever.....however, I don't worry about how much salt I eat. I am outside almost all day every day. I sweat like a horse. This is a very hot and humid climate, and I don't think eating salt is going to hurt me. My blood pressure has always been on the lower side of normal. I don't worry about anything that I eat. I don't know how much salt I eat because I have a habit of tossing just about everything every couple of months. I use Tony Chachere's seasoning on just about everything but ice cream....which is a seasoned salt, when cooking, and if I think it needs more salt when I eat it, I add salt from the regular container. I am probably as healthy or healthier than most people my age, and eating salt doesn't concern me at all.

We don't add salt to food at all. And after my recent cardiac adventure (stent in my right coronary artery), I am limited to 2,000 mg sodium per day. I am usually around 1,200-1,500 mg per day.

Not a lot. I add table salt to eggs,steak and fried potatoes. I never could understand salting a whole plate of food before even tasting like some people do. I cook with very little salt. I do get a lot of sodium in my diet anyway since salt is in a lot of other seasonings I use and I don't have a processed food avoidance thing going on. I have naturally low blood pressure. I'm like Marilyn about food. Much healthier than most friends my age who are watching their diets, avoiding this and that.

I salt my food generously, but I avoid processed foods so my overall probably isn't bad. Blood pressure is always perfect.

When I did keto I had to try to get 5000 mg a day of sodium due to electrolytes. That felt weird.

Once you go on a low-sodium diet and start reading labels you realize how crazy high the sodium content is in most prepared food. A bit of salt from the salt shaker isn't the biggest challenge. Cereal, pasta, bread, canned goods, dairy products, drinks, soups, sauces, processed meat, etc. etc. are loaded with sodium. Restaurant food is at least as bad, probably worse. Turns out it's quite difficult to limit yourself to 2000 mg a day unless you are cooking from scratch. I cook with mostly fresh ingredients and very small amounts of salt then add a light sprinkle at the end if necessary. It was a tough transition for me -- I love salty foods -- but I gradually reduced the sodium in my diet. Wish I didn't have to, though.

With the keto way of eating one actually needs extra salt, so I do use more than some people do.

I think our salt intake is average, which is a big improvement from a couple of years ago. I’ve really worked hard at cutting back. Now, instead of automatically reaching for the salt, I try to avoid it. Some things I salt and some I don’t, it really depends on what I’m cooking.

Not much. I do love a sprinkle on homegrown tomatoes and use a bit on eggs. Other than for baking as required, I don’t add any when preparing most other foods. There are a few exceptions - a little kosher or sea salt seasoning is better if added just prior to serving (soups, chili for example). We usually have a finishing salt at the table.

I cook with no salt but use a wide variety of spices. I cook most everything from scratch. We do use a small amount of salt on popcorn or french fries which are things we rarely eat anyhow. We have lost our taste for it and often find restaurant food unpleasantly salty.

There are several more potential adverse consequences of consuming too much salt than just blood pressure/cardiac health. And as with blood lipids, what is okay and what is too high for blood pressure and salt consumption vary from person to persons, the lines aren't bright or absolute.

I never notice my salt usage,as far as amount. I have to cook 2 different ways. One way for me,one for SO. I like salt, he doesnt really. He only like very little if at all. He loves black pepper though. If I make the same thing for both of us,I don't salt hardly at all when I'm cooking but will salt mine afterward. If im cooking something just for me, I use more salt.

I think there is nothing worse than underseasoned food. He thinks there is nothing worse than food that is too salty. It's a fine line.

I do have some pink Himalayan salt,but I don't use it. I bought it because it was pink. :)

I don't know how much salt I use, I salt to taste, keeping it on the light side when I'm cooking. I like my food a bit saltier than my pepper-preferring DH so put a salt and pepper shaker on the table with the food. Lately I've been enjoying Australian Murray River salt flakes for grilled vegetables and seafood over the sea salt I'd been using. It's not a particularly salty salt - if that's possible ;0)

We don't eat many prepared foods. Sometimes a treat of potato chips or something similar tastes very good to both of us but I don't keep them on a regular basis.

No high blood pressure in this house or any health issues that require a supervised diet.

We use way too much salt. I guess we need to address that issue.

I agree, Elizabeth. I can’t sand to order a dish in a restaurant that has too much salt. So unnecessary and it tastes awful to me since I am not accustomed to it.

It's pretty hard to over-salt a potato, but other than that, I use a small amount of sea salt on most dishes. But I have no medical need for a salt-reduced/free diet.

We go through a large amount of salt in our house but a lot of it is used for cleaning purposes and/or crafting.

For consumption I have my grandmother's salt and pepper crystal shakers that I set out for special occasions, a nice daily set of acrylic (look like crystal) salt shaker and pepper grinder, and an old glass set of salt and pepper shakers kept in the spice cabinet for use during cooking.

I don't salt anything but a tiny grind on a fried egg. Not too much prepared food here, but recently tried South Beach Diet and OMG, so much sodium in their food (which I generally am happy with, except the sodium). So I've been using 1/2 of their prepared food meals and adding unsalted items to compensate. I don't add salt to most of the things I cook from scratch except for baked goods and I cut it in 1/2 from the recipe.

I do love going to fine dining restaurants and even though I know the reason so much of the food tastes divine is from more salt than I'd ever dream of eating at home, I just enjoy it without guilt.

I eat a lot more salt than I should. Not necessarily by applying salt to my food, though. I'm half Japanese and grew up with a lot of soy sauce in various dishes so I get alot that way. I also take my lunch and it contains salt: frozen dinners, even the healthier ones have tons of sodium in them. My blood pressure is really good, though, so not worried about it at the moment. I crave salt more than sugar.

More salt! More salt! Be sure and watch it till the end! And turn up the volume on your computer or whatever you use.

"Once you go on a low-sodium diet and start reading labels you realize how crazy high the sodium content is in most prepared food. . . . Restaurant food is at least as bad, probably worse. Turns out it's quite difficult to limit yourself to 2000 mg a day unless you are cooking from scratch."

Many restaurants tout their "low calorie" menu items. But low calorie does not equate to low sodium. Tonight Hubs and I had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Before the waiter even took our beverage order, I asked for the nutritional information for their menu items. The Grilled Steak Medallions from their Skinnylicious menu has only 440 calories, 170 of which are fat calories. There are 19 g fat, 10 g of which are saturated fat and 0.5 g of trans fat. There are 140 mg of cholesterol, 1320 mg of sodium, 24 g total carbs, 4 g fiber, 6 g sugars, and 45 g protein. The Skinnylicious Fresh Vegetable Salad has only 400 calories, but it also has 1710 mg sodium. The Skinnylicious Asian Chicken Salad has 540 calories and 2720 mg sodium.

We do cook from scratch at home. No processed food for us.

When I was at the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center at the hospital last week, one of the things they gave me said to limit sodium to 2,000 mg to 2,400 mg per day. Today my total was 2,185 mg sodium -- the most I've consumed in over 2 months (since getting the stent).

I have different experiences with restaraunt food. All the "home cooking" places around here have TERRIBLY bland food. They all say "well we don't use salt because some people can't have salt." Yuck. Its just wrong to give someone unsalted fries unless they ask for them. Mac and cheese should not taste like paste. It just takes a little. That's why I rarely eat from a restaraunt,and when I do,it's a select few that actually season their food.

Very, very little salt usage in our household. I do use it when I make bread, but that is about it. We only purchase reduced sodium broth (I make my own most of the time) and always omit it from cooking recipes. I find that liberal use of other spices gives the food flavors that are very enjoyable and don't miss the salt in most cases. When we dine out, I find most foods intolerably salty and even request that they not salt anything while preparing it. I've returned meals when they come out obviously salted during prep. Salads can be your best friend in cases like this.

If you cook all your food from scratch at home, it's important to get some salt (and iodine) in your diet. There can be adverse effects from eating very little to no salt.

We don't salt at the table, but I do use salt in my cooking.......just not as much as recipes state. I don't measure 1/2 tsp for example, I just pinch some in my fingers from a little dish that I use. And it's nowhere the amount specified.

And it's always kosher salt. I don't have table salt in the house.

I almost never use any salt while cooking, with the exception of when I make gazpacho or cold cucumber yogurt soup. I will use concentrated chicken stock in some recipes, or soy sauce, or salted butter, but will virtually never add any salt directly.

I'm often both amused and annoyed by cooking shows where at every single step of the recipe they add more and more salt. I'm annoyed because if you add too little salt for the tastes of the person eating the remedy is simple, they can add some at the table, however if the cook adds too much there is no way to make it less salty, the most that can be managed is to add something else to try to hide the fact that it is too salty.

A friend from work participated in a nutritional study, where they provide all of your food for two weeks. One week contains zero salt. The second week has very similar foods, but with very high salt. While he was heating his lunch at work I could tell from 5 feet away it was the high-salt week. When he finished the study, his results were so anomalous, that they questioned him about whether he followed the instructions and asked him to do two more weeks. The second test produced the same anomalous results, for him the high-salt diet actually reduced his blood pressure.

I salt beef a little. NOTHING like Gordon Ramsey or any of those chefs who've burnt out their tastebuds. I never salt chicken or ocean-going seafood. I salt hard and soft boiled eggs, but never omelets nor scrambled eggs.

I do highly salt Russet potatoes, because they typically just taste like cardboard. (At home, I'd rather not cook with them things.) Yukon golds taste fine with minimal or no salt, if properly cooked and seasoned.

Mrs Dash adds no real flavor to anything, I would rather use Trader Joe's 21 Salute, which is a really good salt-free seasoning.

An addendum: I brined a heirloom turkey several years ago, following directions. It was disgustingly too salty, and I ended up throwing much of it out. I ate as much as I actually did, due to the price of the bird. But all that salt: DISGUSTING. NOT PALATABLE. (And I rinsed and soaked the poor critter with water prior to cooking, too.)

I can't eat some cheeses or some pizzas because they are so *salty*. Funny how you can really taste the salt granules when you are eating a semi-liquid egg yolk. Yum.

I go through a lot of pink salt. I put it on anything that requires salt. With a low carb way of eating, it's important to get enough salt into your system. As for regular white table salt: I use it for cleaning my cast iron frying pans. We no longer ingest it.

DH and I both grew up without salt on the table, so we continued that way. So many people add salt to the water when the pasta is cooking. We don't. We buy low sodium spaghetti sauce, but very few other processed foods. We add a pinch to homemade bread. We don't eat meat at home, and eat sweet potatoes (no need to salt) not white potatoes. I buy unsalted butter but rarely use it. DH is allergic to dairy, so we do't have cheese. It takes us a long time to go through a box of salt; we don't even keep a salt shaker. Re blood pressure - I have low pb and DH has high bp.