I have no dog in the fight but a couple of notes are worth adding.
A) Salt from the SF Bay is generally consider of poor quality, otherwise it would be marketed as special.
B) The South Bay salt flats operated by Cargill are considered environmentally hazardous.
C) Pink Himalayan salt has the highest concentration of micro-plastics, re: Mr. Bitterman.
D) SF Bay has a history of toxic chemicals be dumped in it, including selenium from the Gold Rush.
Solution: use Morton’s instead?
Frankly I have no idea. Another things to track and wonder about….like all the other crazy environmental stuff. That said, I do use Morton’s iodized salt and generic kosher salt for general use and use red Hawaiian salt and some smoked salt on occasion.
I was going to bring up Morton kosher salt mined in Grand Saline, TX. That’s where they got their start. But an online search brought up varying accounts of what goes on with that company. Anyway, here is a video of what goes on down in the salt mines there. Miles and Miles of salt.
My only objection to Morton’s and the like is that its fineness makes it hard to pinch and sprinkle.
Salt is salt. I think some of you are a bunch of salt snobs.
Sodium chloride is certainly sodium chloride. Some salts have other constituent elements that add nuanced flavors. Textures certainly differ. IMO salt is salt but in a much more subtle way than wine is wine.
How? Don’t they just take the salt chunks from million of years ago and just grind them into smaller pieces?
Indeed.
Well, I got in a bulk bag of Redmonds Real salt, to check it out and for use in fermentations. It does seem that this salt is minimally-processed, basically mined and ground to small particle size. The mined deposits are ancient, void of modern pollution. It isn’t evaporated either. I dissolved some in pure water and after the salt dissolved, there was a very small amount of grit/dust in the bottom of the jar. I doubt the fineness and quantity of this sediment would be detectable in recipes or ferments. It appears to be colloidal, clay-like.
Also, the sodium content of Redmond’s is very slightly lower than most other salts. E.G.:
Morton Pickling salt = 39.33% sodium
Redmonds Real salt = 38% sodium
(Obviously, most of the remaining mass is chloride.)
That difference is purely informational; practical differences are moot.
It’s also important to consider what is in the water, which gets evaporated, in salts purified by brine evaporation. Whatever is in the municipal or well water (omitting seawater here) will either evaporate with the water or get deposited into the forming salt.
I wonder if he is trying to assert that kosher salt, like AP flour, is “overprocessed.” I don’t know if his [pints are valid, but that seems to be the side he’s taking. As Jeffery Zakarian put it, “I use kosher salt for salting food before or during cookng; and sea salt to finish.” I kinda stick to that.
From the interwebz:
Microplastics in Himalayan Salt?
Though it’s not surprising to find microplastics in sea salt, we were surprised to find that pink and black Himalayan salt are contaminated with microplastics, and at higher levels than many sea salts.
I think it’s the packaging?
I can recall those beautiful brine ponds n the south bay.
I remember seeing them as we went from Pleasanton to Palo Alto. As I recall, we crossed on the old Dumbarton bridge. The red ponds and the white piles were quite a site.
Those plastic numbers are pretty astounding. Between those and the trace mineral data, it seems that the sentiment that salt is salt is not necessarily true, even if you disregard differences in taste and texture. Plus, if table salt is bleached, that’s another pollutant and endocrine disruptor, isn’t it? I wish the article had added in Diamond Crystal for comparative purposes. I shall now start asking more questions of the Google.
And then there’s lead:
I love Jacobsen, but it sure is pricey.
I know this is an older thread, but I don’t recall reading this from a few years ago. Seems like they’re trying to sell the idea that everyone should use sel gris as their main go to salt, and that is crazy, if just on cost alone. Salt has so many uses in cooking - not just the sprinkle or half a teaspoon to bring out the right taste in cooked dishes - but it is entirely impractical when there is at minimum a 3-4x cost factor. I don’t even like to use my Diamond Crystal when I have to make brines; I use the cheaper Morton’s stuff.
This reminds me of an article I read on a completely unrelated product. Was looking into toothpastes and learned there was an “organic” toothpaste called Euthymol that touts being organic with no added fluoride. I know there are some who may be allergic to fluoride who need this, but the organic part was clearly a marketing push for broader consumers. The research article followed up on patients who were using this “organic” toothpaste, and they found those patients all showing signs of cavities starting to develop despite having regular brushing habits. People may prefer organic and dislike an additive chemical like fluoride, but it really does prevent cavities. The point being organic doesn’t = better for your health.
You certainly cannot get a good understanding of a product based on the way it is marketed. It seems if you want to get or avoid some particular aspect, you need to start your research, and that research is quite segmented. You can’t just ask “What’s in my salt?” You need to run queries on microplastics, lead, trace minerals, other heavy metals, etc. And then there is the often unanswered question of how those results were obtained. And then, when you have all of your data, how to you compare X, Y, and Z?
