Denny's Breakfast. Photo: jumanggy/flickr

Denny's menu features items that "are dangerously high in sodium," according to the class action lawsuit filed by a New Jersey man with the support of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition and food safety nonprofit group.

Nick DeBenedetto, of Tinton Falls, N.J., a 48-year-old on medication for high-blood pressure, filed the suit Thursday in the New Jersey Superior Court in Middlesex County.

"Denny's menu deceptively presents various items as single meals to be consumed by one individual without disclosing that they contain substantially more sodium (in some cases two or three times more) than the maximum recommended amount for all meals consumed by an individual during a given day," his complaint states.

Denny's Corporation, based out of Spartanburg, S.C., told the Los Angeles Times the suit is "frivolous and without merit."

Salt is an essential component of cooking and in a professional kitchen, chefs are lucky enough to have a sous-chef to offer a second taste opinion. Whenever I eat out, it's one of the things I notice right away, because both under- and over-seasoning ruin the dish for me.

According to a recently released study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, many restaurant chains are guilty of overloading their meals with salt, thus increasing millions of customers' risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, Nearly 85 percent of the adult-sized meals at 10 popular chain restaurants have more than the recommended daily limit for total sodium intake -- 2,300 milligrams, or roughly one teaspoon of table salt.

Most home cooks are keenly aware of the connection between excessive salt consumption and high blood pressure which results from the body's need to dilute high concentrations with additional water. As a result, home cooks tend to err on the side of caution and don't use enough salt to bring out the best of each dish.

So, how do you know if you're using enough salt?

Get Jennifer's smart seasoning and salt-busting tips after the jump.

After successfully forcing NYC restaurants to post calorie counts on menus and to stop cooking with trans fat, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the commissioner of New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, is waging a war on salt. A recent New York Times article explains that he's going after packaged food companies and mass-produced restaurant meals. Apparently, they contribute 80 percent of the sodium in the average American diet. Over the next five years, Dr. Frieden aims to cut the level of salt intake by 25 percent.

Is salt so bad for us? Salt, in some people (not everyone) can lead to high blood pressure which is a leading factor in the incidence of heart attack and stroke. At the same time, many scientists do not believe sodium intake is directly related to high blood pressure. In the past, studies comparing hypertensive populations found that those on low-salt diets had more than four times as many heart attacks as those on normal-sodium diets.

Although the health link may not be clear, what's obvious is that excess of most ingredients cannot be healthy. And, foods at fast-food chains, like McDonald's, are outrageously high in sodium. It seems that if dealt with in a reasonable way, Dr. Frieden's goal can be quite progressive. What do you think?

No wonder people are confused about diets and health. One week coffee is bad for you, the next it's good for you. One week fat is bad for you, but then we find out it depends on what kind of fat it is. One week it's bad to have too many carbs, the next week we find out we need carbs but they have to be the "good" kind.

Now it's salt in the news again. I think salt has always been called "bad" for you, especially if you have high blood pressure or other medical problems. And now the FDA is going to hold hearings on the white stuff.

It's not really the salt you shake on your foods (something I never do anymore) it's the salt already in the packaged foods we buy. According to statistics, 75% of the salt we get comes from packaged foods and not the stuff we add ourselves.

Well, this is the oddest food holiday I've found, next to Dress Up Like An Ear Of Corn Day*, but let's see what we can do with it.

It's always good to use less salt, especially if you have high blood pressure (and a lot more people in the country have high blood pressure than anyone realizes - what used to be "borderline" is now too high). I haven't added salt to food in over 10 years (no joke), usually substituting pepper if I need a little seasoning. I also like those no-salt seasoning like Mrs. Dash. Go check out that aisle in your supermarket. I think you'll be surprised at what you'll find there.

Here's some info on using less salt. Here's a recipe for Linguine with Fresh Herbs you might want to try, and how about some tips on drying fresh herbs?

* This doesn't actually exist.

Warning: the following story doesn't give you permission to start downing dark chocolate by the case.

As someone who has high blood pressure, I welcome any new news that eating certain types of food can help bring the numbers down. Of course, if I just exercised more I could lose some weight and that would probably take care of 97% of my problem, but in case that doesn't happen, I like hearing news like this. Researchers in Germany have discovered that small portions of dark chocolate might help people who are in the early stages of high blood pressure. 24 women and 20 men, aged 56 to 73, were given both white and dark chocolate over 18 weeks. The white chocolate didn't have much effect at all.

I'd write more but I have to run out to the store and get some dark chocolate.

I haven't added salt to food in 15 years. I have high blood pressure and don't want to risk any possible increase. Besides, a lot of food we eat already has enough salt in it and I haven't missed it. If I add anything at all, it's pepper or one of the many flavors that Mrs. Dash gives us.

The Salt Institute has a large FAQ page about salt. You can find out what salt exactly is, how much is produced in the U.S., effects it has on the human body, how animals react to salt, how much salt an athlete needs. There's even a huge list of recipes that contain salt. Recipes that contain salt? Wouldn't that be too big a list to have even on the web? Actually, they're recipes for food where salt is a vital ingredient.

Have you ever heard of soy yogurt? Until I ran across this article I hadn't. I like yogurt a lot, especially when it's a premium product like goat, sheep, or water buffalo yogurt. I even make it myself at home quite often in my yogurt maker. But soy yogurt? I will have to look for it at the market and see if I can find it. Well, soy yogurt may help control type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. It seems that enzymes in the yogurt help regulate blood sugar levels. This could be good news to the 15 million Americans and 150 million people around the world with type 2 diabetes. This discovery was accidental, like many in research. The research team bought a whole bunch of different types of yogurt with various fruit, because they were actually testing which fruit had the best levels of these enzymes. one type they bought was soy yogurt and they found out it had even higher levels of the enzyme than the regular fruit yogurts. Have any of you tried soy yogurt? Is it any good? How does it compare with other types of yogurt?

According to a study conducted at Black Entertainment Television during the summer of 2005, there were far more more commercials for fast food and snacks on black-oriented TV than on channels aimed at the more general population. The results of this study, which will likely prove to be provocative, indicated a cause for the rising trend in obesity among African-American children. The study monitored commercials during the afternoon hours, the time slot most attractive to children who watch cartoons and 'tween shows; the the WB network and Disney Channel were also involved in the study. During the time slot, over 1,000 ads were shown on all three channels. On BET 66 percent of the ads were for fast food commercials, as opposed to 34 percent on the WB and none on the Disney channel. BET scored an 82 percent for soda ads, with WB at 11 percent and the Disney channel was again last at 6 percent. As for high calorie, low fiber snacks, the BET commercial time came in at 60 percent, nothing for the WB and the Disney channel scored 60 percent.

With news agencies now saying that a major source of salt in daily diets is bread, carb-laden loaves could once again come under fire from nutrition-fanatics. Even though the headlines blame bread, more than 75 percent of all the salt in people’s diets come from processed foods, only a small portion of which are breads. Salt is necessary in bread making, not only for flavor, but because it interacts with the yeast, retarding its growth and producing a better-textured, tastier loaf. One teaspoon of salt weighs just over 2 grams, and organizations like the British government recommend a maximum of 6 grams of salt a day. If a loaf of homemade or non-preprocessed bread has one to three tablespoons of salt in it, there is nothing to worry about unless you are eating multiple loaves of bread on a daily basis.

Some salt is necessary in the diet, serving functions like regulating fluid levels in the body. Do yourself a favor and cut back on the deli meats, don’t just cut back on bread.