Archive for October 7th, 2009
Sea Salt: Mining for the Nutritional Truth
If you’ve ever purchased sea salt at the supermarket, you may have noticed claims on the packaging referring to its nutritional superiority. But could sea salt really be any healthier than table salt? After all, both substances consist of precisely the same ingredients – sodium and chloride minerals. According to Katherine Zeratsky, a nutritionist at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, any nutritional differences between the two are negligible at best. Those differences could only owe to impurities found in one of the two types.
The real reason chefs and amateur cooks fill their salt mills with sea salt involves its bold taste and texture. The coarseness of sea salt makes it feel more substantial when chewed and savored on a freshly cooked dish. Since it’s the product of evaporated sea water, a few trace elements are left behind in sea salt – adding some color and flavor to the proceedings. Those with hypertension or other disorders where too much sodium can cause an imbalance should be forewarned is potentially just as harmful.
It’s worth noting that most table salts are iodized, meaning that a small amount of iodine has been added to help prevent iodine deficiency. This problem leads to serious medical complications such as goiter, cretinism and other developmental disorders. If you plan to stick with sea salt that hasn’t been iodized, you’ll want to get trace amounts of the element from other sources such as seafood.