Scone

Food · Grain · Food, Typed Supps

The saltiest thing in the bakery — 968 mg per hundred, in something served with jam.

Stage by stage

Sweet masks salt (Taste): Sweetness actively suppresses perceived saltiness, which is why nobody notices.
Chemical leavening (The dough): No yeast time means a lot of baking powder, and that is where most of the sodium comes from.
Sodium (Circulation): 968 mg per 100 g — a café scone is 580–775 mg.
Fat (Liver): 8.5 g per 100 g with 3.09 g saturated, before any cream.

Timing

Nothing to time. The lever is where it was made, which for once is a bigger difference than how much you eat.

Time to effect

2–4 weeks: Blood pressure response to reduced sodium.
Per café scone: Around 580–775 mg sodium at 60–80 g.

Allergens

Contains: Gluten. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.

Satiety

106 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — moderate. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.

Environmental footprint

1.6 kg CO2e and 648 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Wheat & rye" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Cheap — roughly £2.5 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Sodium
Carbohydrate
Saturated fat

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 334
Protein: 7.9g
Carbohydrate: 55.2g
of which sugars: 6.5g
Fat: 8.5g
of which saturated: 3.1g
Fibre: 2.1g
Sodium: 968mg

Food vs. supplement

Most foods differ little between the commercial and homemade versions. Scones differ by 40% on sodium, which makes this one of the few cases where baking it yourself is a genuine nutritional intervention rather than a preference.

Kitchen tip

Make them yourself if you have them often. The AFCD homemade row is 560 mg of sodium against 968 — a 40% cut for the same scone.

Common myth

“A scone is a sweet treat — the salt in it can’t matter.” In reality: It is the saltiest thing in the bakery at 968 mg per 100 g, above crumpets and above every bread here. Sweetness suppresses the perception of salt, which is precisely why it goes unnoticed. Most of it is raising agent, and the homemade version comes in at 560 mg — a 40% cut for the same scone.