That is, in fact, the real difference between kosher salt and “regular” salt: kosher salt is not iodized. Recipes for pickles seem to indicate that the iodine will cloud the liquid, so they suggest kosher salt. And there are people who need to avoid iodine.
I have to say the comment by Marcella carries more weight with me than any of the others. If her comment was directed at Kosher salt as the Kennedy quote seems to indicate, then it wasn’t iodized. It has motivated me to try some sea salt. Can’t hurt.
Just want to point out that most table salt is derived from sea – I think this is true, but I could be wrong. You probably mean unrefined sea salt?
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All salt comes from, or came from, the sea. Salt mines are still sea salt, just seas from a very long time ago.
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I actually end up using the various too chunky sea salts that i have purchased for cooking, mostly just as a way to use them up- I certainly can’t tell any difference between using those vs kosher salt in the final result
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I think the difference noted in finishing salts has to do more with grain size than trace mineral content
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Well, that is why you shouldn’t eat “sea” salt from very long time ago. It has gone bad.
I think he is concerned that commercially produced salt has a negative impact on his bank account.
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Basically true. Google came up with one distinction. You could consider Sea salt to be harvested via evaporated sea water, where as other salts are mined. The original source for both is the same geologic forces, just how they’re derived and sold today. I’m going to look for some that says it was from the evaporative process. I don’t really expect there to be some big difference. Chemically salt is salt. I have a hard time believing that some trace minerals will have a big impact.
Now smoked salt or salt with higher levels of something, yes.
I know it is fun to tease Bitterman, but in all honesty, does he have a real point? Na-Cl is Na-Cl. So the salt itself is safe. However, I believe his argument (or other people) is that large scale commercial salt has more toxic impurities. Now, natural unrefined sea salt actually has MORE impurities because it is less pure, but some people believe that these impurities from unrefined salt are from nature, so they are more safe.
The other argument would be: commercial salt and unrefined sea salt are equally safe to human, but commercial salt process is more damaging to our environment?
The referenced article is not to be trusted. First, Kosher salt is usually made by evaporation of brine. The brine is evaporated in open, shallow containers, using pressurized steam heat, the Alberger process. This creates a less dense, flaky salt with fewer impurities. Contrary to the article, Kosher salt has a lot of microscopic holes in it and dissolves faster than many granular salts. It also sticks to food more easily if sprinkled on it. Now, where does the brine come from? It’s mined, like most salts. It comes from the earth and is not synthesized, which would be very expensive. Most salt deposits in the earth are ancient; many from long-gone sea beds or naturally deposited veins in the earth. Further refining is necessary to remove grit and impurities. Sand, for example, does not dissolve in brine and sinks; it’s easily removed before evaporating the brine.
Now, how pure do you think today’s oceans are? Do you think “sea salt”, which can come from, anywhere, is safer? Are French waters cleaner? The added minerals in sea salt may or may not be beneficial. If you’re making anything fermented, like Crock Dill Pickles, you better know the Sodium Chloride content. Sure, most sea salt is primarily NaCl, but I’ll trust ancient deposits rather than recently evaporated sea water.
Admittedly, I have a pet peeve with salt measured by volume in pickling recipes. A cup of Kosher salt does not equal a cup of “Pickling Salt” or Sea Salt. I always use weight and used a Triple-beam balance to make salt conversion notes.
Cup for cup, Kosher salt is less dense and less potent than granular salt. The article’s implication, that it’s bad, is plain nonsense. It’s spewed by misguided opinion, lacks scientific reference, and makes irrational insults at those who use Kosher salt. There’s more ego dissolved in that article than genuine understanding.
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It’s all BS. Buy what ever salt makes you feel good inside
The rest is just marketing
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If you want to learn more about salt, search for “Halite”. There are cool images of crystals and lots of interesting facts.
For those of you who need to know more about salt, brining and recipe adjustments, here are some measurements I made in 2010:
per One Tablespoon (15 ml):
Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt= 8.2 grams
Mrs, Wages Pickling Salt (fine)= 19 grams
Non-iodized Table salt (fine)= 18.45 grams
Yoder’s Sea Salt= 18 grams
Weights taken today, 3/25/18, using salts from the same company-Morton:
per 1/2 Cup (125 ml):
Morton Coarse Kosher salt= 125.45 grams
Morton Canning and Pickling Salt= 149.45 grams
Morton Natural Sea Salt= 142.95 grams
As you can see, volume can be a terrible method of measuring salt if you don’t have exactly the kind of salt described in a recipe. If you make a pickle brine and the recipe calls for thee cups Diamond Kosher, you better not use three cups of Pickling salt or you’ll ruin the batch. You could use those dills to de-ice your driveway! The above weights can be used to create ballpark conversion factors. For table seasoning and stovetop, you can use your taste. For pickle brines, you can’t because the salt will change concentration as it slowly enters the product and the product dilutes the brine.
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And you didn’t even include “popcorn salt” (the saline equivalent of powered sugar)!
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I bought the two books you mentioned in another post, Asian Pickles and Fermented Vegetables, and was alarmed to see that the only measures for salt were by volume. The Shockeys have a website and publish their e-mail addresses, so I wrote and asked about how much a cup of their salt weighs. I received an e-mail from Kirsten Shockey on the following day specifying that their measures are as follows:
1 cup = 275 grams
3/4 cup = 210 grams
1/2 cup = 140 grams
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Bcc, thank you very much for posting that! I’m going to mark that down in the book. Yes, it’s unfortunate that a lot of books on pickling/fermenting still use volumes instead of weights. Some books will specify, sometimes in the introduction, what type of salt they use, but even that is imprecise. On pages 46 and 106 of Fermented Vegetables-Shockey, they explain using Redmond Real Salt, but most folks may not have access to this without expensive shipping. No store, within an hour’s drive of my home, carries Redmond salt.
In real life, there are more big gardens in the less urban areas. Many people, like myself, have huge gardens and process a lot of vegetables. If you live “in the sticks”, you may have to settle with what you can find within a half-hour’s drive. It’s great to have more weight to volume information, so recipes can be adjusted to the salt at hand.
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I’m a big advocate of weighing salt in recipes and certainly baking and brines. For general cooking I can eye Diamond kosher salt well enough
