Leftovers for Chooks

[lynda66]

i always used to add salt, till i got a steamer, now the only thing i use salt for is when i cook pasta or rice, cos i boil that, but i put it on after cooking, cos i use less ...... i've found that with steaming veg, you get the natural flavours staying in the food, so the salt isn't needed.

so i always stick extra veg in for the chooks. i've found they will eat raw root veg if i liquidise it and put it in their mash, or frozen veg i just defrost in the microwave and they eat it, and they have just started managing to rip bits off leaves now, so i don't have to liquidise them any more

i do give them whatever is going that the dog doesn't want

[lynda66]

I think the medics say we eat too much salt because of the amount of processed food most people eat now.

i don't tend to eat processed food often, but if i do, i wouldn't give it to the dog or the chooks

[frias]

hate to tell you a colleague told me they'd given fish skins and scraps to their chicks and they got fish flavoured eggs a couple of days later and no she said they werent nice

Mine ate all the garlic and onions in the garden. I also give them tinned tuna and salmon and I've not noticed any taste of it in the eggs.

[Hilary B]

Maybe we should pack off all our native Welsh Ponies to Northwich, there's plenty of salt there. I don't think they are going to find much of it on top of a Welsh mountain. If we can't taste food, only smell it, then why do people use salt, which is a taste. Which ever way you look at it, the salt taste is so strong that it will overpower the essence of the more bland food. Am I imagining that I can now taste food better than when I used salt? If,as you say, horses actively look for salt, why do my horses turn their noses up at it? I suspect its that they get enough in their daily food ration, which is as near as I can get it to how they would eat in the wild.
I'm sure that people don't lay into whole blocks of salt at mealtime, the amount that they put on their food is minimal, yet the medical profession still say we eat too much salt, so how much is 'enough' without 'overdoing it'.

Tasting the salt (or sugar for that matter, but less so) somehow seems to increase our sensitivity to the smell-taste of what we eat it with. So does MSG, which is why it is added to so many processed foods. It may be a reaction to the sodium.
If you don't believe the 'smell-taste' idea, try this test. (you need an assistant). While unable to see what you are being given, taste something mild-flavoured (maybe apple) and at the same time smell something strong (like onion?).
Truly wild horses tend to live where there is salt in the soil, and every stable I have seen a salt-lick in, it gets used, and well used.
The 'excess' salt is mainly due to processed food, and it may be a factor that these days we eat rather a LOT of meat in comparison to our protein needs, and the most strongly 'naturally salty' food is meat. Our ancestors (only a few generations back ate salted meat for a fair bit of the year, but they didn't actually have very MUCH of it, and of course they were working hard. The main reason for using up salt is in sweat.

[terrier]

Our ancestors ate salted meat because they did not have fridges or hermetically sealed packages to keep it in for long periods. Salt was/is used as a preservative, that doesn't make it good for us. Most of the salt we ingest may be used up by sweating but it's what's left behind in our bodies that's bad for us and that's usually far too much. I know plenty of vegetarians who don't use extra salt on their food, they get all their body requires from vegetables and fruits.Fresh food. When the Japanese poulation started to eat more 'western food' they moved from a high salt diet( which caused a high instance of heart problems) to a high fat diet, the instance of heart disease lessened and was replaced by a high cancer rate, so from that we may want to deduce that salt reduces cancer?
The 'smell/taste test' just goes to prove that our senses are easily fooled, the stronger sense overrides the weaker one i.e. you put salt on food, you taste salt.
Wild animals live where there is water, without that they die, simple. If my horses were overusing a salt lick, I would be looking at their general diet/health to see what was wrong.The other reason for this is boredom. Horses are grazers,nomadic. Lock them in a stable and they get bored and unhappy.

[Sue]

I recently had tests at the Doctors and salt, sugar and fat levels came back as normal. I use all three in cooking, gave up on those horrid low fat spreads a long while ago, butter for me!
What I don't do is eat processed food, which is what I suspect is the main cause of the high salt/sugar/fat levels that are the current worry?

The only thing I do to salt is dehydrate all the tough outside celery stems I have, grind them to powder and mix half and half with Maldon Sea salt. This naturally reduces salt levels and doesn't halve the taste.

Sue

[janeyo]

We don't use salt in any cooking. Just don't think about it, when I do use salt (ie on chips) it's lo-salt.
The chickens get leftover rice pasta etc with no fear from the salt thing.

The veg goes in raw except for potato, they don't seem to like it cooked so the garden birs get that instead.

[shirlthegirl43]

If a chef laced my food with salt, I'd send it back Some of the most popular resteraunts I've been to, I find that there is very little salt added to the food. Less salt, better tasting food.

Agreed - I don't use salt in cooking (except in bread where it is essential to make it rise properly and in porridge where it really does taste rubbish without) the boys are used to not adding any salt at the table and I personally only add salt to potatoes.

[lynda66]

, butter for me!

Sue

me too, have always eaten butter, just so much nicer than margarine ...... i also use lard for frying ...... but then i only eat chips about once a month and they have to be covered in salt and vinegar ..... chooks would never get my chips lol.

[Hilary B]

Our ancestors ate salted meat because they did not have fridges or hermetically sealed packages to keep it in for long periods. Salt was/is used as a preservative, that doesn't make it good for us. Most of the salt we ingest may be used up by sweating but it's what's left behind in our bodies that's bad for us and that's usually far too much. I know plenty of vegetarians who don't use extra salt on their food, they get all their body requires from vegetables and fruits.Fresh food. When the Japanese poulation started to eat more 'western food' they moved from a high salt diet( which caused a high instance of heart problems) to a high fat diet, the instance of heart disease lessened and was replaced by a high cancer rate, so from that we may want to deduce that salt reduces cancer?
The 'smell/taste test' just goes to prove that our senses are easily fooled, the stronger sense overrides the weaker one i.e. you put salt on food, you taste salt.
Wild animals live where there is water, without that they die, simple. If my horses were overusing a salt lick, I would be looking at their general diet/health to see what was wrong.The other reason for this is boredom. Horses are grazers,nomadic. Lock them in a stable and they get bored and unhappy.

I know the salt in our ancestors diet was as a preservative. The fact remains that it was THERE so maybe the hype about how bad salt is for you is a bit OTT? They also ate a fair amount of fat. It isn't the diet alone that makes the difference, it is the interaction between diet and other aspects of lifestyle.
The taste-small thing is FACT. They made a big issue recently about the discovery of a 6th 'actual' taste.
It is easy to add so MUCH salt that you taste nothing else, but the idea that by adding ANY you drown the taste of the food is just plain daft.
Wild grazing animals DO seek out salt-licks (places where salt can be found, either in the soil, or as rock-salt) and consume salt. If you dispute my FACTS, see whether an encyclopedia (NOT wikipedia, which is the only online one I can find, and I don't trust it) agrees with me, or with you.

[Hilary B]

PS, if you don't want salt, don't have it, but I do know what I am talking about with the science side.

[Flummery]

Our ancestors is a pretty big concept. Until a few generations ago you were old at 50. Maybe it DID do harm?

[Hilary B]

Our ancestors is a pretty big concept. Until a few generations ago you were old at 50. Maybe it DID do harm?

Even hundreds of years back SOME people lived to 80, or even a hundred. 70 was considered 'realistic' in biblical times. Average life expectancy as often quoted is dragged down by infant mortality rates, and of course pre-contraception a lot of women died of having too many babies, or simply of complications in childbirth that we can now usually manage.
I suspect that most of the 'scares' we get apply a lot MORE with the less energetic and more stressed lifestyle of the modern world than when getting enough to eat was the biggest problem, and worrying about whether you should eat something else was pretty pointless, because there wasn't anything much else TO eat.

[Flummery]

Life was nasty, brutish and short, they say!

[lizzylemon]

... a high salt diet( which caused a high instance of heart problems) to a high fat diet, the instance of heart disease lessened and was replaced by a high cancer rate, so from that we may want to deduce that salt reduces cancer?

Unfortunatyely not, what it points at is a high fat diet causing cancer. Apparantly Cancer "feeds" off certain body fats. Holistic approaches to curring cancer include a vegan diet so as not to feed the cancer.