Can cooking a potato with other food reduce overall sodium?

Answer 1

Yes. A potato is like a sponge, it will suck the salt out of most foods. That is why when you are boiling potatoes you should always salt the water heavily. So, if you want something to be less salty, throw in some potatoes, then throw those potatoes away, or use them in another meal, that you are going to use less salt in.

They are also high in vitamins.
Enjoy your potatoes!

Answer 2

Potatoes will not reduce the sodium, however they will reduce the salty flavour. It's a common practice to throw a peeled potato into a soup that has been over salted during the cooking process.

Answer 3

If you eat the potato, definitely no. If you remove it, yes, but the question of whether or not it's significant may be difficult to resolve.

Potatoes and other root vegetables will often absorb various things. I do not know the details of what absorbs what better, but from my personal experience, a whole onion will actually absorb certain spices and flavour very well.

You could try an experiment cooking several pots with equal parts of water and salt, and then keeping one empty, cooking one with a potato, and cooking one with an onion (or other root vegetables), and then discarding the potato or onion, and doing a taste test to determine if any salt had been absorbed.

I haven't found any hard data on this online, but I can say from experience that onions do work very well for absorbing spice, such as from too much hot pepper. Potatos may work better than onions because they're starchier and more absorbent.

Answer 4

It will take away some, but not all, of the saltiness of a dish but whether or not it reduces the actual sodium content...I don't know.

Answer 5

Adding a little lemon juice or vinegar will help more than a potato, I do catering and have learned this through trial and error