Sweet or Salty

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Yup, more variety in salty food.

Under "salty" I don't mean only various snacks, but all sorts of dishes which contain the flavour, in whatever form. The amount of ingredients one can put in "salty" food and the specter of flavour characteristics obtained by mixing and combining them, IMO, outnumbers the diversity of flavour experiences you can get through sweet food. Consider spices, vegetables, meat.

Sweet as a flavour boils down to sugar and various carbohydrates, some alcohols, honey, and various synthetic sweeteners, for processed food. It might be divine, but the main appeal of sweet food is the fact that it's sweet.

The "salty" flavours provide greater diversity.

The soda pop is at the end of the day, just a soda pop, whatever the flavour. Hardly an experience worth praising.
On candy: (gum aside, since basically, all you get is sugar + artificial aroma + main mass of it) I'm not saying that there isn't a variety of different candies, only that there are more combinations possible for "salty" food.

Alcohol can't be made from salt, true, but by transforming sugars into alcohol, you lose the sweetness, so no points there.

True, salt isn't added to beverages (I heard some people lick salt when drinking tequila, though *shrugs*) but just the same, you don't use sugar for seasoning meat, for example.

Like I said, I like both food types, so this post isn't anti sugar or anything.

The debate doesn't make much sense anyway - we are "programmed" to like sweet as a flavour, since it promises glucose for the brain, for example, and just the same, we can get "salt craving" and even a behavioral response of licking salt, if our blood sodium (natrium) is low.

 

Sodium chloride ftw!

 

Damn Skippy you have salt with Tequila! It's one of the few times I can have salt without gagging!

Also, you can use sugar to cook onions, spinach and potatos...caramelised steak...it could catch on

 

Ever heard of honey glazed ham?

 

I have heard of it, actually but it never crossed my mind when writing the previous post. I've never tried it (so I can't comment the taste), nor had it considered as a legitimate lunch option. Does it taste sweet?

(There are also salads with fruit + vegetables or those dishes with apricots and fowl...)
I've chosen a wrong example with the meat I guess, but still, I assume that there are legitimate dishes in which no one adds sugar/honey. Chicken soup, perhaps? (Maybe someone adds it there, too. *shrugs*)

 

DAYGOS??!! LOL, Barmy, you are the only one with brass ones big enough to use a term like that. If any of "the Family" hears you talking like that, Guido and Nunzio will make sure that you are sleeping with the fishes before your next birthday, let alone your 50th.

Back to the topic, I love salt. I put it on everything. It makes me happy. It's my white powder addiction. It drives my wife nuts.

 

I'm not willing to do the research, but it would be interesting to see how much *food grade* salt and sugar is consumed every year...

I did a quick search and found this from the FDA:

Not sure if that accounts for industrial use, or if that is in fact how much people ate...all I could find on salt, is that human consumption only accounts for ~17% of the industry.

And that's all the effort I'm willing to put in to that.

 

So where's the sour option? I like sour things like old cheese (+2 years) and yoghurt.

 

Sorry Morgoth, that would have been a good addition. I was also considering putting the "both" option in but I really wanted people to choose one or the other even if it was close. I like some sour things as well but I'm not sure that I would consider old cheese sour. Strong and sharp maybe but I probably wouldn't use the word sour.

 

Went for salty after days of indecision

 

Salty, for the same reasons Lore cited. Though I do have a sweet tooth sometimes. Lollipops, fudge, and sour worms are my thing. Can't beat a good steak, though.

 

it depends on the food..
but i more like sweets than salty, and specially spicy..
i don't like spicy food!
but I've love sweet food, really whatever it is...!