How can I leach some sodium out of my favorite olives?

You could put them in distilled water and possibly heat them up, I can’t think of any scientific basis for potatoes.

Have you tried buy unsalted olives and mix them in? I know whenever my food is over salted, I will either mix it the same food that has little to no salt, or if I can’t do that, I will add a pinch of sugar, or add lemon juice, or a little red wine. I don’t know how this will work with olives but you could try the sugar if the soaking in water or lemon flavored water doesn’t work. But I would try the water first. You just have to let it sit in water and then drain and do again if still too salty. Or try the lemon.

@Pandora Does sugar or lemon actually cut the sodium? I don’t have a problem with how salty they taste, I just probably would like them just as much with 30% sodium and I’d like to eat more at once. The sodium level is insanely high.

Update: I’ve had some olives in plain water for 4 hours now, and the water doesn’t taste salty at all to me.

@JLeslie , I thought you wanted to just be rid of the taste. Did you taste the olive? The lemon and sugar was to reduce the bitter taste of too much salt.
Hey, I just found this video that explains how to remove salt from olives.
http://www.ehow.com/video_12239030_make-olives-less-salty.html
She says this if for people on a reduced salt diet.

The potato in soup thing only works if you remove the potato after boiling. Potatoes are absorbent, so they soak up some of the salty broth. Your then supposed to add water to replace the lost brine. It’s not much of a good trick.

@Pandora On your video she uses straight water. I would think if the olive was losing sodium the water would taste salty. I thought that would be a better gauge for me than trying to figure out if my olives tasted less salty, because I assume they will still taste salty no matter what. I’m going to try the olives I have soaking tomorrow.

@Seek Really? Why would you need a potato for that? You can just pour off, or ladle out, some broth if the potato just soaks up the broth.

And that’s why we don’t rely on folk wisdom to cure cancer, or do anything else important.

That’s for sure. Lol.

You know that you can just buy lower sodium olives, @JLeslie?

This is insane. How can they make both olives and anchovies lower sodium? Seems like an integral part of both.

But, I love these olives.

You probably love them because they’re salty. Olives are kind of gross before they’re brined.

What’s the brand, & type, @JLeslie?

Castelvetrano olives. I buy the Mezzetta brand. The only problem is I don’t think they are sold pitted. I much prefer olives with the pits already removed.

@Seek No denying I love salty things, but I’d like if these had a little less for the taste and the sodium intake. Each olive has 120 mg of sodium.

@Pandora I wanted to thank you for your link. Because of it I stuck with soaking and rinsing the olives. It takes about 48 hours and about 3 rinses, but I do believe they have lost some of their sodium.