Q. Aren’t sea salt and regular table salt simply the same thing? -Jay
What’s the story on sea salt? The hype is that it is somehow especially good for us. Aren’t sea salt and regular table salt simply the same thing, NaCl? Isn’t all salt essentially from long ago seas? If sea salt is better for us, then why? -Jay
Hi Jay,
Sea salt is not just NaCl. It contains many other minerals as well. Other table salts are processed thus loosing the healthy minerals and in fact may contain aluminum, a toxic heavy metal, as a de-clumping agent. I recommend sea salt with iodine in general to my patients as we often don’t get enough iodine in our diets.
Hope that helps,
Dr. Gary Huber
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Yeah kinda , sea salt has more soduim & its 1oo% pure
what about Himalayan sea salt? How is it different? I’ve heard that it’s much much better for you and that some people even smoke it to help relieve symptoms of arthritis. What’s that all about?
Maybe, but we might just be arguing minutia.
For example, we can all agree that smoking anything is not a great idea. I know that the American indian culture smoked a few things but it’s not a practice I endorse on any level. Sea salt or Himalayan salt are better than table salt for the reasons listed above. A broader range of minerals, trace minerals such as selenium and zinc that are processed out of traditional salt products.
The marketing schtick that Himalayan salt producers are using is that because the oceans are polluted, the sea salt is polluted and salt from the untouched Himalayan mountains is more pure. Sounds good and may even be true. I haven’t seen any studies to prove that but it is certainly worth looking into. We live in a fairly toxic environment where we are exposed to so much “junk” that I feel there are better ways to remove toxins from our life. A good water filter in your home will remove far more toxin from your existence than changing your salt. So if you want to research this topic then please let me know what you find as I would be interested in the answer. But for most people there are much bigger issues that need to be addressed before we sweat the details of our salt intake. If you are at this level of concern then must have already removed ALL processed food from your diet, have a whole house water filtration system and a fluoride removal system, own an infra red sauna, and eat completely organic. If so then I loudly applaud you. Now spread the word.
Dr. Gary Huber
What ” processing ” does uniodized normal table salt go though ? Grinding, sifting ? Our oceans today are so polluted that I would much rather have the ancient salts which would have any mineral content intact, whatever is in the ‘ sea ‘ today. This is simply yet another marketing scheme. By the way…….I have no stock in salt of any kind. cdtsr