JimLane wrote:

> Bob wrote:
>
> Here you go Bob, but first a word about your recipe example, allow me
> some poetic license because I am looking at a model he

Are you ****ing insane? "Poetic license?" We're not talking poetry,
we're talking science. Or, at least, I am. We're talking REAL numbers,
not some airy-fairy POETIC LICENSE.

Deal with the real numbers in both the recipe and the butter. Then it
begins to mean something. Your silly, self-serving "example" is
apparently all you have. Poor JimLane.

> Bob put up a recipe that calls for unsalted butter and this recipe ends
> up having, for grins, 100 units of salt in it. Whoops, no unsalted, so
> we'll add some salted butter in (btw, let's not get into "adjusting"
> because the other salt is already in). Say there is enough salt in the
> butter added to bring the overall salt content up five units.

Here's the real information, JimLane. Why not use it? No need for you
to strain your pretty little head making up stuff.

<<<<<<<<<<< begin quote >>>>>>>>>>>
The cakes each took 2 tablespoons butter, 5 eggs, 3/4 cup of flour,
1/4 cup milk, 3/4 cup sugar, teaspoon baking powder, 1/8 teaspoon
salt, teaspoon lemon extract. The butter (if I had measured it
exactly) contained 0.45 grams of salt (28 grams are an ounce), 1/62nd
of an ounce or 0.08 teaspoons of butter. Eight hundredths of a
teaspoon. Less than 1/10th of a teaspoon. That's a Scroogy pinch for a
whole cake intended to serve 8. Combining 1/8 teaspoon salt the recipe
calls for with the 1/12th teaspoon from the butter makes the amount of
salt leap from 3/24 of a teaspoon to 5/24 of a teaspoon. All the way
up to just under 1/5 of a teaspoon in a 9-inch cake.
<<<<<<<<<< end quote >>>>>>>>>>>>

> Bob says that will wash out and doesn't make any difference, because
> that 5% is inconsequential (remember, the actual number here is for
> illustration).

Bob says that adding 0.08 of a teaspoon of salt in a 9-inch cake would
be undetectable except to laboratory instruments. Stick that
no-basis-in-reality 5% where you store all your other "facts."

Why use fake numbers when the real ones were given to you? How sad a
show.

> Here's the rub, Bob, there is an assumption everyone would make the dish
> with 100 units of salt. Not so. People on salt-restricted diets or those
> who naturally eat low levels of salt might only put in 25 units. Now
> that extra five is a 20% increase and that is significant and detectable.

You know, I believe that you don't know how to read the citation I
gave you. Why are you talking in abstract "units" when the absolute
numbers are there for you to use? That 5% is significant *only* as a
percent increase. It's *only* significant as an abstract numerical
concept.

But, anyway, We don't perceive % increases, we perceive absolute
amounts. Your preposterous "example" is like saying that if I have $5
and you give me $1, that's more "detectable" than if I have $100 and
you give me $19.

So if you actually read the full paper I cited, there's a buncha of
NUMBERS and CHARTS and CONCLUSIONS. Unlike your "citation."

> Here's why (I went out and found some actual real research, Bob, that is
> replicable and not meaningless numbers).

"Meaningless numbers" to someone who doesn't know how to interpret
them. But that's why I also posted what they meant. To spare you all
that pesky thinking.

I don't see *any* numbers from you here. I see you "interpreting" a
paper that you offer no quotes from, no access to, and haven't even
read all the way through, by your own admission. Is this how you deal
with professional citations in your work?

You've attacked me for not offering data and say that in your field,
just making statements without support is bad. You're doing exactly
that. I believe that you aren't a technical person and you certainly
aren't a scientist. You certainly don't know how to present data.

> Elmer, Patricia Jeanne. 1988. The Effect Of Dietary Sodium Reduction and
> Potassium-Chloride Supplementation on Sodium-Chloride Taste Perceptions
> in Mild Hypertensives. University of Minnesota.
>
> Now, I haven't read the full document, but if I get the gist

Gist this. I love "haven't read the full document, but..." Couldn't
even offer a URL? Right. Very credible. I searched for the paper for
about 5 minutes and didn't come up with it. The title got nothing. The
author got nothing. Keywords didn't come up with it, either. I'd be
very interested in reading it.

Remember this that I've posted twice to you?

<<<<<<<<<<<< begin quote >>>>>>>>>
And here's some honest-to-god science with statistics and charts and
technical terms like "moles' and other cool stuff.
<http://lib.tmd.ac.jp/jmd/5001/14_ohno.pdf> Look at the
concentrations of saline solutions that were undetectable. See the
pretty lines in the perceptivity charts. Based on their conclusions,
you'll want to forego brushing your tongue before eating. Dentures
won't matter for salinity, only bitterness. These were elderly
subjects with reduced sensitivity from what they should have been able
to perceive when younger. But the mean thresholds of perceptivity is
rather higher than I would have thought.

Here's what a molar solution is about
<http://www.public.iastate.edu/~bkh/teaching/molarity.pdf>

A molar solution of salt would be 58.44 grams of salt in enough liquid
to make a liter. How much salt was in each solution? Well, to quote
myself, "A tablespoon of table salt weighs right at 0.6 ounces or 16.8
grams. A tablespoon is 3 teaspoons of salt which weigh 5.6 grams each."

1= 0.0008 M solution = 0.047 g
2= 0.0017 = 0.099 g
3= 0.0033 = 0.193 g
4= 0.0067 = 0.392 g
5= 0.0134 = 0.783 g
6= 0.0267 = 1.560 g
7= 0.0535 = 3.127 g

Note the mean thresholds for perceiving salinity on page 4. Do the
math. Are we done with this now?
<<<<<<<<<<<<< end quote >>>>>>>>>>>>>

Perhaps you noted that the mean thresholds of perceptivity were up at
solution 7. When people first noticed that there was any salt at all.
And that was in plain water with no obscuring other flavors as would
be in the cake, particularly sugar and starch.

Here's another way of looking at it: The cake weighs in at about 630 g
+/-. The salt was increased by 0.45 g. or a factor of 0.0007 or 0.07%,
all but impossible to detect as a differential. And even with both
salt additions included, the total percentage of salt in the recipe is
at 0.0018 or 0.18 percent. That scales out at a hair over the
concentration in solution 6.

> of what she
> says, people who are on low sodium diets, prefer significantly less salt
> and showed significant changes in their salt taste (variables) and
> showed a preference for significantly lower concentrations of (salt).
>
> Now, I haven't read the whole thing, but is appears that science and
> replicable research back my position that the shift from unsalted to
> salted butter in a recipe CAN make a difference in taste. As opposed to
> your, no way.
>
> Hopefully, this will add some new information for you to consider.
> instead of blindly rejecting the possibility that a mere change from
> unsalted to salted butter can make a difference.

Either you're illiterate or deliberately being obtuse. Perhaps both.

I predicted that in using salted versus unsalted butter, any
difference would be undetectable in the quantities at hand. A dozen
people tasted both cakes and confirmed that hypothesis. Period.

I also cited a study that dealt with thresholds of perceptivity and
offered quotes from it. You can jump up and down and flap your arms
all you want with your hypothetical numbers and obscure papers you
only claim to have half-read, but you've shown nothing. You're
offering only your opinions, exactly as you chastised me for doing.
I've brought reference materials. See how it's done?

Here's 5 bucks, JimLane. Buy yourself something frilly.

Pastorio