Sugar and Salt Cancel Each Other Out

[Meaty Pop]

So I was talking to a coworker today and she said that she had had too much sugar today and so she needed to eat something salty. Basically, somehow the sugar and salt cancel each other out. I couldn't quite get an explanation of how this occured, but it just did.

Has anybody heard of this before or anything like it?

Meaty Pop

[snopes]

somehow the sugar and salt cancel each other out

Actually, they combine to form sodium suchloride, a toxic, carcinogenic chemical which is used in anti-freeze and is just one molecule away from plastic. And it's dangerous to feed to your pets.

- snopes

[Dr. Dave]

If you mean in cooking, salt's presence can enhance other seasonings- it does not increase the amount of course, just the taste sensation. But there is nothing I know of in a "total for the day" effect, and that isn't canceling out anyway.

Medically, salt and glucose taken together enhances the absorption of the sodium in the gut- so when you are trying to orally rehydrate someone, giving a soution with both (e.g. Pedialyte or Gatorade) increase the sodium absorption via active transport. Although greatly elevated glucose in the body (e.g. a person with diabetes) will cause increased urination, it will not necessarily increase sodium excretion. None of this has anything to do with what your coworker said, though.

ETA: Then there is of course what snopes just said

[matches]

absolutly it happens to me all the time...

Essentially, if you eat too much sweet, you start to get a taste for salt, fat, or protein, and vice versa.

I usually find that eating too much sugar leaves me feeling a litle loopy, and salt helps bring me back down, but usually it's jsut a tast thing.

It probably has an evolutionary component to ensure a balanced diet.

I find it's mostly just about over stimulation...once you eat too much of something the after taste stops being pleasurable and you want something to counteract it.

Since sugar and salt are two very strong easy to find tasts, you tend to gravitate to one or the other to remove the taste of the other.

[annabohly]

No, but I heard that a candy bar and diet coke at the same time cancel each other out.

[Deepfrydegg]

I was always under the impression it was the flavors that cancel each other out. In effect, the lingering sweetness trapped on your tongue would go away after throwing something salty in to mix it up.

In an aside, my uncle was eating rather spicy mexican food when he hit something too much. Water wasn't cutting the burn, so someone told him to try a spoon of sugar. He said the sugar releived the burn and he felt fine.

[snapdragonfly]

I always thought it was just as simple as how I want something salty if I've had some sweets, or wanting a sweet if I've been eating savory things. It's just a craving for the opposite. I don't know why.

...now some things satisfy both at once...mmm...bbq chicken is sweet and salty, for example.

[CSGirl]

Originally Posted by snapdragonfly

I always thought it was just as simple as how I want something salty if I've had some sweets, or wanting a sweet if I've been eating savory things. It's just a craving for the opposite. I don't know why.

I'm the same way. Even to the point where I can separate whether I want fruit-y or chocalatey sweets, or salty or spicy foods. I don't like sweet things very much, but sometimes when I've had too much salty/spicy food, I have sugar cravings- and they're always very specific. Like, I may really need Swedish fish lol. I also arrange my meals so that there's something salty and something sweet- and then I eat them, alternating. (Not alternating the two foods, but alternating dishes. Like, some peaches, then a salty dressing salad, then raisin bread.

...now some things satisfy both at once...mmm...bbq chicken is sweet and salty, for example.

Here I'm the opposite- because of the reasons I gave above, I almost always dislike sweet/salty combinations.

[Logoboros]

So are chocolate-covered pretzels supposed to be... what? Tasteless?

--Logoboros

[Salamander]

Originally Posted by Logoboros

So are chocolate-covered pretzels supposed to be... what? Tasteless?

--Logoboros

No, that's the wrong kind of "cancel each other out". Chocolate-covered pretzels actually hover on the border of non-existence, an exactly 50/50 (sweet/savoury) batch will simply cease to exist. Clever manufacturers push it as close to that 50/50 line as they can, often within a few fractions of a percentile.

This fragile grip on existence does have certain benefits to it though. Anyone feeling a bit guilty about polishing off an entire bag of chocolate-covered pretzels can have their over-indulgence cancelled out by working out if the pretzels you ate were on the sweet or savoury side and ingesting a small pinch the opposing sugar/salt (thereby bringing the pretzels to the 50/50 balance and causing them to burst into spontaneous non-existence) . A cautionary note: repeatedly causing your chocolate-covered pretzels to cease existence while in your stomach can lead to ulcers.

[Old goat]

And brownies eaten in the dark have no calories.

[Esprise Me]

Thanks, Sal, I knew there had to be a way to have my Flipz and eat them, too!

[Spamamander]

We needed a good excuse to keep eating the Flipz? Addictive lil bastards those things...

[annabohly]

Originally Posted by Old goat

And brownies eaten in the dark have no calories.

Really!!!!

note to self- stop by store for brownie mix.

[matches]

Originally Posted by annabohly

No, but I heard that a candy bar and diet coke at the same time cancel each other out.

I myself find that horendous. When you drink diet soda, you eventually cease to notice how sugar actually tastes, and feel the diet soda is sweet enough. If you eat something sweet imedeatly after diet soda it to me it tastes like I just dropped a packet of sugar on my tounge. Likewise, the next taste of diet soda tastes only of the awful aftertaste of sacrine.

In genreal, I have found, real and artificial sweetners don't mix.