Herbamare® Salt Substitute

 

Herbamare® Sodium-Free is a salt substitute made in France by the A. Vogel® company.

People eating home canned products made seasoned with Herbamare Sodium-Free believe there is salt in it. They taste no difference between Herbamare and salt in a product.

You may wish to review this page: The role of salt in home canning . It brings together citations from accepted trusted sources in the home canning field explaining why salt, in the quantities used in most home canning recipes, is a flavouring agent and not a safety preservative agent. Their objection to salt substitutes has been on the basis of flavour and performance. Very little testing with salt substitutes has been done for many decades now.

Herbamare Sodium-Free, a modern European product, now addresses those flavour and performance concerns.

 

Why Herbamare Sodium-Free works in home canning

Herbamare Sodium-Free meets three of the physical property conditions that the canning experts spell out for pickling salt:

1) It is fine-grained;

2) There are no anti-caking agents in it (it will in fact even bind together when let sit in a wet or humid place);

3) It is iodine free.

It also meets the additional behavioural requirement of “no clouding.” Even in jars of pickled foods a year old, Herbamare causes no clouding, no sediment and no discolouration of the product. (It’s important not to have any clouding, because seeing clouding is one of the safety signals we have to have working for us.) ¹

 

 

Herbamare Sodium-Free won’t do the follow things for you

1) Crisp things up (Use Ball / Bernardin Pickle Crisp® instead);

2) Act as a salt to draw water through osmosis out of chopped up fruit or vegetables (see: how to compensate);

3) Act as a salt to control fermentation in fermented pickles. You must use real, actual salt in fermented pickles to make a safe fermented product.

4) Act as a preservative in curing hams, sausages, fish, etc. You must use real, actual salt for that.

You can use Herbamare Sodium-Free in the same quantities as you would salt in canning recipes, measure per measure — though you may find that you cut back a bit, if only because your tastes may grow to be less tolerant of super salt doses. Which is just as well, because Herbamare is not cheap. But for its use in home canning, where it’s really only needed in small amounts as a seasoning to balance flavour, its cost is not a barrier at all, especially when you compare the cost of your home canned, salt-free products to what you’d have to pay at the store for similar healthy food.

 

What’s in Herbamare Sodium-Free?

The ingredients are: Potassium Chloride, Organic Leek, Organic Onions, Organic Bell Pepper, Organic Lovage, Organic Horseradish Powder, Organic Thyme Powder, Organic Rosemary Powder, Organic Basil Powder, Organic Marjoram Powder, Organic Parsley, Organic Celery, Organic Lemon, Organic Spinach, Organic Garlic Powder, Kelp Powder. ²

Herbamare Sodium-Free is also gluten-free, MSG free, dairy-free, certified kosher and certified organic. ³

It is made for the A. Vogel company by Bioforce Production in Colmar, France. The A. Vogel company is a Swiss health company that has been around for decades, founded by Alfred Vogel in 1963.

 

Herbamare Sodium-Free Nutrition

If you are on a low-potassium diet, consult your healthcare professional before using because it does contain a large amount of potassium.

 

Notes about Herbamare

Herbamare also makes shakers of seasoned salts — actual salt with various herb blends added. Herbamare Sodium Free is part of that range, but it contains no salt. Make sure you get the one in the blue container pictured on this page that says “sodium-free” (not “diet”.)

In the UK, Herbamare Sodium-Free appears to be called Herbamare Low-Salt, even though the ingredient list is the same and it actually is not just low-salt, but actually also really no-salt. Check the ingredient list; it should start with potassium. ⁴

 

Alternative to Herbamare

See other salt substitutes for home canning we have worked with to date.

 

Where to buy Herbamare Sodium-Free

You can get it in health food stores. Amazon also carries it. In Canada, it currently sells in stores for 3 to 4 bucks US a canister. In the UK, £2 to £3 per canister. You shouldn’t need to pay more than that, unless you find a giant sized canister. If you see it on Amazon for more than that price, you should keep on shopping, some vendors ask bizarrely high prices. Note that many listings for it on Amazon that might seem expensive at first are actually for multi-packs of it. You might see it poorly described as “Herb Seasoning” but make sure it is their sodium-free one that you are looking at, they do make others that are not.

This Amazon.co.uk may help you locate it in the UK: Herbamare Low-Salt.

 

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1. “[Pickling] salt will also keep pickling liquids or brines from getting cloudy. One of the ways that you can tell that a pickled vegetable jar has gone bad is a cloudy liquid that is created when bacteria is present. Canning/Pickling salt will create clear brine that is perfect for pickling.” –Shipp, Cindy. Master Food Preserver and SB Canning author. Pickling & Canning salt – What is it and why use it? Accessed March 2015 at https://www.sbcanning.com/2015/02/pickling-canning-salt-what-is-it-why.html  ↩

2. A. Vogel FAQS. Accessed March 2015 at https://www.herbamare.us/Faqs.aspx  ↩

3. A. Vogel FAQS. Accessed March 2015 at https://www.herbamare.us/Faqs.aspx  ↩

4. https://www.avogel.co.uk/food/herbamare-low-sodium/  ↩