I have never bothered to look into the sodium content in baking powder. This forum really helped me in knowing such an important fact.
But what I think if you bake anything that uses baking powder with the regular stuff off your grocer's shelves you are eating sodium that can easily be avoiding. Mostly the amount of sodium in standard baking powder it's likely to be 100-200 mgs per serving. There are several brands available, but the only one I've actually seen is Featherweight. I can find it at a local health food store sometimes. You can try that one.
More information about the harmful effects of sodium is there in the below mentioned site, for those who are also new to this thing as that of me
That's 100-200 mg per serving, i.e. one bag, of baking powder (which is by no means pure baking soda). For a 12-slice cake, that's 8-16 mg per serving, if you use the entire bag and no other sources of sodium. That makes the cake "very low sodium", bordering on "sodium free", as per the document you linked to.
You could also use a 'yeast' based recipe instead...
And there is sodium in breastmilk and baby formula. It's there for a reason. I would not consider the tiny bit of salt in baking powder significant - if you eat bread...
However, I do have a lovely parent who makes wonderful health food for her child and she makes sugar-free profiteroles (choex pastry) with either no filling or a cream cheese sort of filling (not sweet) and they are awesome!
I don't worry a bit about the sodium in baking powder, but personally do about the aluminum. Back in the U.S. I always bought aluminum-free baking powder, but here... do they have it? It was not as easy finding baking powder (I had to search on here ), let alone the aluminum-free option.
The typical American high-temperature and "double-acting" (i.e. low- and high temperature) baking powders contain aluminum compounds such as sodium aluminum phosphate. Just read the ingredient list. The usual ingredients of low-temperature baking powder are [repeat for the umpteenth time] sodium hydrogen carbonate, a.k.a. sodium bicarbonate, cream of tartar and starch (from corn or wheat) to prevent clumping. [/repeat]
If aluminum compounds are not listed, there aren't any. That means it's low-temperature baking powder. I've never seen anything else in Switzerland. High temperature baking powder requires amounts of aluminum compounds that have to be listed.
Sandgrounder was absolutely right to add the word Excess to that sentence. People need to be aware that there are harmful effects to the body when there is a sodium deficiency as well.
I am all for low-sodium products, and do no like to make my food too salty; My mother pretty much raised me that way since she never added very much salt to her cooking. HOWEVER, because of this, I ended up with my thyroid not producing enough T3/T4 hormones, because my body lacked the iodine needed to make them. Most people get enough iodine when they eat a normal (note not excess, but normal) amount of sodium on a regular basis. The key, as always, is moderation.
I appreciate the right for someone to make a low-sodium, formula powder cake, no matter how unappetizing it may sound. I appreciate the reasoning behind it. Just make sure that your actions have the same result as your intent, because you may be doing more harm than good in the long run.
Downright wrong. Sodium carbonate is washing soda. Umpteen+first time, repeat after me: Baking powder is sodium hydrogen carbonate (= sodium bicarbonate obs., a.k.a. baking soda) plus cream of tartar plus (optionally) some anti-clumping agent. And sodium is called Natrium in the entire German speaking part of the world, not only in Switzerland. Oh, and in Latin, Greek (νάτριο), Danish, Hungarian, Dutch, Shqip, Slovensk, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and many other languages too.