There was an old questionnaire give up garlic or wine. That one was easy, garlic. But yesterday it came up, and my wife asked a much more difficult question. I am torn, but I think the answer would be wine.
definitely salt- rarely cook with it anymore. Now wine, that would be a tragedy and such a waste of a perfectly good cellar.Surprised you would pick wine.
I think Mark meant salt anywhere, not added salt. Think how bad that would be! Forget ever having baked goods again. Fruits, veg, and unsalted meat. Hey, I’m almost there 
Those baked goods though…
Easy for me - give up salt. There are so many other ways to season food that salt is an easy trade for wine.
Yes, salt period.
I think you were wrong about the garlic.
Salt.
*isnt there a certain amount of salt needed to sustain the human body? Can we at least have the bare minimum?
Why give up salt completely?
I thought it was fine in moderation.
It’s a thought exercise.
I’d give up wine.
but on the original question I’d give up garlic.
I don’t want to die. Yet. Can’t live without salt; can live, if poorly, without wine
I got a horrible cramp in my leg one night, my doc told me up the salt. My normal diet has very very little salt.
Giving up wine would be both healthier* and tastier overall for me. Don’t need a lot of salt in my food but I do need some to bring out the flavors whereas wine is less essential to everyday life.
\
- That salt is so bad for you has been overblown IMO. At one time we thought a high fat diet was bad too.
Hi Mark,
Why not go “saltless” on evenings when you want to drink wine, and just spit the wine when you want a bit of salt?
Easy. Salt.
I am assuming the rules of the game allow life sustaining sodium intake.
I gave up added salt in 1991. Ever since I did, it’s weird, I eat more food with Soy sauce.
If giving up salt means giving up all foods with sodium content, then that’s impractical and unhealthful. If it means giving up the addition of salt in your cooking and at the table, it is a relatively easy shift in diet with a tough up-front recalibration of the palate. I was in this mode of “saltless” for about 20 years but have brought the shaker back for select applications in our menu.
Cheers,
fred
You’re trolling us right?! Soy sauce? I just checked my fridge and our soy sauce is 29% salt.
I presume we’re not including the salt that you find naturally in pretty much all fresh ingredients, including water? If that’s the case, then the question becomes rather academic, as you’d need to remove salt from everything before you eat it, then die from a lack of some of them. If we restrict it to ‘natural’ salts, in fresh ingredients only, then that’s more conceivable - though it would entail not buying pre-made or baked goods, and limiting where you can go out to eat to a small number of places (though how often would you go out to eat if you could’t have wine with the food…?).
Actually, there are only a few things that I add salt to, so I could easily give it up. In fact now that I think about it, I’m sure I’ve gone many weeks without using salt (or buying food with added salt) in the past. I make all my own baked goods and hardly ever add salt (though I do use a lot of seeds, some of which have more salts in them than you’d think).
Would it entail giving up meat as well perhaps, which can have a lot of salt in it? Actually, that brings another question - would you rather give up meat or wine?
(For me the answer is easy, as I very rarely eat meat anyway).
I think this is an Anton joke, but how in the world can one both “give up added salt” and then use soy sauce? This is like giving up all sugar then drinking cokes 4 times a day.
I’d give up wine. I have wine a few times a week. I eat seasoned food 3 times a day. And while there are other ways to season food, I don’t think anything comes close to salt, added appropriately, to make food taste better. I think the overall enjoyment of salt outweighs the occasional deep enjoyment of wine. Plus I like scotch, gin, and beer.
I assumed the first as well.
But I assumed that “salt” included other condiments which included sodium such as soy sauce or fish sauce.
Ok, gentle people. Enough salt from products that contain it in small quantities to allow you to live. But I suspect you will be giving up seafood. And yes, this excludes salty products like soy sauce and Cheetos