A Salty Question

Salt Mounds - Bolivia

Have you noticed how many commercials speak to "natural sea salt: as a delicious, nutritious - and much better than common salt - addition to their product? Campbell's Select Harvest Soup is one example.
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What is the deal with that?
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The claim, at times, is that their natural sea salt contains less sodium than salt. What they're probably saying is, the "sea salt" they are putting in the product is actually potassium chloride - not sodium chloride. However, if you read all of the ingredients on the can of soup - for example, the Maryland-Style Crab Soup you will see "contains less than 2% of lower sodium natural sea salt" and then you will see salt listed twice as an ingredient after that.

So they still add salt. The potassium chloride may have been added separately to the meat and/or vegetables as a normal everyday processing agent. They may have been adding it all along - for years. Then someone started thinking out of his stupid box (I hate that phrase) and came up with the bright idea of calling the potassium chloride "natural sea salt".

Salt crystal magnified 200x

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Salt is sodium chloride from the sea. Mined salt (called halite), that becomes table salt is in the ground because an old salt sea dried up bazillions of years ago. Would that not make it ....I'm going out on a limb here...sea salt??? The area was later covered by silt and dirt and whatever else covered the land over the years. Mined salt - think Morton's - is processed to remove impurities. Iodine is sometimes added and sometimes a drying agent is added to keep it from caking up.
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"Natural sea salt" is an ambiguous and overused term for salt that has been obtained by evaporating sea water. The sea salt will be (hopefully) processed to remove impurities. Then flavoring ingredients may or may not be added, and the salt may/or may notcontain other minerals and elements that are resident in the sea.

Some "natural sea salt" is colored by minerals and elements indigenous to the area that the processors choose to leave in with the salt. Like black lava salt. It has lava in it. Nice dinner table conversation for Mister Wine Label Snob, but who wants to eat lava. Voluntarily?

This "natural sea salt" has flavoring agents added. 3.5 lbs of these assorted salts are just a mere $59.95.

Some people say they can taste the difference between table and sea salt. I suppose if they are using more than they should, or dipping radishes in it they are able to taste it. Or if things like truffles, peppercorns or cayenne are added, of course they can taste the difference.

Consistency is noticeable when you sprinkle kosher salt or unevenly grained sea salt on top of your focaccia instead of table salt or when you sprinkle popcorn salt - which is finely ground table salt on your popcorn. But once salt is added to soups, sauces or dressings it is liquefied and other ingredients are the flavoring agents. You will not be able to attribute anything but "salty" to the taste of the salt.



The thing is, we are supposed to be watching our salt intake.


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Dietary Salt (sodium) Intake
"Normal" salt diet ... ... 1100 - 3300 mg/day
"High" salt diet ... ... 4000 - 6000 mg/day
"Low" salt diet ... ... 400 - 1000 mg/day


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Getting back to my can of soup, it contains 480mg of sodium per serving (serving size is another incendiary subject, as many companies adjust serving size for their own benefit when reducing the volume or weight of a product rather than or in addition to raising the price or to lower the fat or sodium per serving - like saying my can of soup contains 2 servings instead of one normal human being sized serving.


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A normal person, eating just soup for lunch or dinner may very well decide to enjoy the entire can - a bowl of soup instead of a cup of soup. In that case, you are eating 960mgs of sodium - 40% of your daily food value. If you are on a low sodium diet, you are done for the day.

So, what I ask you, is the point of highlighting the nutritious sea salt? Or any salt at all when processed foods are bringing far too much sodium into our diets?

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The one ingredient these salts are missing - unless listed as an additive - is iodine. Iodine a necessary nutrient for a healthy thyroid, but is available in vegetables and seafood. The upside to the Select Harvest Soups is they do taste good, and the Crab soup contains only 80 calories per serving 160 calories per can. (you did know there is a give or take of 20% on the number of calories stated, didn't you?)
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"Lot's Wife" salt pillar - Dead Sea

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Quick history of iodized salt: Iodine was first added in minute amounts to salt in 1924 to prevent iodine deficiency - especially in in the Great Lakes Region and the Pacific Northwest. The deficiency was first noticed during the draft for WWI. Many men from these area suffered from goiter and were ineligible for the service. The variety of foods available today makes it easier for us to consume the amount of iodine we need without depending on iodized salt.

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Magnified Kosher Salt Crystals - this is the preferred salt for brining and curing because the uneven edges of the grouped crystals attract moisture. (75x)
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Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland - Chapel of St. Kinga

Even the chandeliers are made of salt

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You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses it's saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by man. - Mt. 5:13 NIV

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Note: Most of the salt used in Israel came from the Dead Sea and was full of impurities. Too many impurities lessens the volume of salt and renders it useless for preserving and curing.

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So what do you think? What happens to that little "gotta go shopping and get some" area of your brain when an advertiser says "mmmmm! natural sea salt!" ?