Healing with Food Newsletter

Kosher Salt: A Misinformed (and Nasty) Trend

Because celebrities use kosher salt, it is cool to do the same. Hogwash, I say to them. Furthermore, I promise you that you can taste the difference between quality and raunchy salt.

As culinary salts are nearly chemically identical, food authorities claim that you need not bother to distinguish between them. One food writer naively deduces that their taste differences are because refined salt is in a cube form and a traditional salt is a flake.

A simple experiment disproves this. Dissolve a ¼ teaspoon of good salt in ¼ cup water, do the same with commercial salt; then taste. Be it dissolved or straight, quality salt is delicious with a sweet aftertaste whereas table salt, kosher salt and many boutique salts taste sharp, acrid and nasty.

Why is commercial salt in cube form? It is refined at 1200 °F. into a pure chemical (99.9% sodium chloride) and then it is typically mixed with other chemical additives. Extreme heat molecularly alters any food and, using our common sense, makes it hard to assimilate.

I favor the brand that identifies how they process their salt and its source. One excellent traditionally harvested salt is available from Eden Foods.

It often happens that I’ll take something as ordinary as oatmeal cookies to a party and someone wants the recipe. I promise her that it’s not the recipe. Indeed, the substantive difference between oatmeal cookie recipes is negligible. Then, I share my secret, "Quality ingredients." She'll find this incredulous unless—that is—she makes cookies using only quality ingredients...salt included.

Yes, despite silly trends and marketing scams, you can rely upon your own common sense and sense of taste to discern the truth about salt.

May you be well nourished!

Rebecca Wood