Are celebrity chefs feeding our fat habit?

Funny that, I yelled at one of those competitive cooking programmes the other day when the chef judging complained that the competitor was not seasoning his food. Let the eater add salt if he wants to. Let there be salt and pepper on the table. You can’t take it out.

I’m so fed up with being served meals in restaurants that are too salty. I hate roast dinners that are spoilt by being covered in over salty gravy. I think we should make a point of complaining – after all there is salt and pepper always on the table. I noticed that the saltiness of the outlaws’ delivered “meals on wheels” food had increased the other day and had to bin a pie that because we’d all gone out to eat I had to bring home. It was just inedible. So often you rely on the unsalted vegetables to ameliorate the saltiness of the rest. So when someone salts the vegetables as well…. I’d prefer to add my own salt if and when I really want it.

It is a little more difficult to find but you can buy a reduced salt vegetable bouillon powder. I also do not follow stock to water ratios but add more water. Chicken gravy made with the juices from the roast chicken is far superior as is the soup made from the home made stock (no or minimum salt). It is worth making and freezing all the way through summer for use in winter soups.

Cakes and those sort of things are special and should be occasional treats – not everyday eating and taste nicer that way. I find many of them far too sweet as I’m used to eating unsweetened fruit. If you do not reduce your sweet tooth now then you are very likely to have a problem later – don’t just substitute sweetener. For me absolute luxury is a freshly made fatless sponge cake filled with whipped double cream and fresh summer raspberries with a dusting of icing sugar. It is a summer special treat. If I ate it all the time it wouldn’t be.

I make custard for my diabetic outlaws using powdered custard, semi-skimmed milk and sweetener granules. I have never used the amount of sugar in the instructions. Custard like cream is so often needed to dilute the oversweetness of a bought pie. If you make your own you can reduce the sugar of course.

Always use the strongest cheese when making cheese sauce and don’t add salt (it’s in the cheese). A little bit of dried mustard powder mixed with water is good added to this. I also use a lot of freshly ground pepper. Don’t add salt with other ingredients which are salty eg ham.

I’d love to hear more about which herbs are useful instead of salt.

As I have to feed a dairy free, diet-controlled diabetic whose food also has to be low fat and low salt, I would like to see more cooking programmes for people with food problems.

I cringe each time I see a Celebrity Chef adding salt to a recipe. No longer a pinch of salt but a handful of salt. The only food I add salt to at home is eggs, I can’t think of anything else that is seasoned with salt. I use lots of herbs and spices but so do the chefs, so why do they use so much salt.