The Dark Side to Grocery Store White Table Salt
The type of salt you buy is probably the last thing on your mind, but even this seemingly harmless grocery store staple is full of chemicals! There’s a better, more nutritious way to salt your foods- check it out below.
What the Heck is Table Salt?
Table salt is manufactured salt that is stripped of its healthiness-its natural minerals. Salt in and of itself is not a dangerous food – we need salt in the body. However, during the manufacturing process, the healthiest of minerals are lost. Through boiling at high temperatures and the addition of chemicals, natural salt loses most of its magnesium and calcium. What’s more, most companies add anti-caking agents to salt to keep it from clumping together. Some of these common anti-caking agents contain aluminum, which is potentially carcinogenic and can accumulate in the brain, leading to neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Bottom line: while table salt does well to flavor foods, it has been stripped of its healthiest components and additional chemicals are added to it.
How to Do Salt Better
I’m on a quest to only feed my family beyond organic and regeneratively farmed foods, and that includes the spices that I use! So when I found San Juan Island Sea Salt, I knew I hit the jackpot.
Here’s how this salt is different:
Between May and late September, the folks at San Juan Island Sea Salt gather seawater from a gorgeous private beach on the south end of San Juan Island, bringing it back to their farm to be filtered and pumped into small ponds in their 14 evaporation houses. Why only in the summer, you ask? It's simple. Unlike most artisan salt producers, they solar evaporate their seawater instead of boiling it. This is key in keeping the high nutrition profile (magnesium and calcium) and incredible taste.
After about a month in the evaporation houses, the whole pond has evaporated, leaving behind a thick layer of salt! By letting the seawater completely evaporate, the trace minerals naturally present in the ocean stay in the salt, adding to its briny flavor!
This salt has two ingredients: seawater and sunshine. AMAZING!!
The salt is then hand gathered and goes through a drying, sifting, grinding and sorting process to produce different grades: flake salt, finishing salt, grinder salt, and medium coarse salt (used in their bath salts).
If you think all salt is created equal, you haven’t tried this sea salt! I’ve made it available in my store (in the Spice Duo), or better yet, it’s available alongside other regeneratively farmed goodies in my Better Box.
Harvested in small batches from the freshest seawater in the Pacific Northwest, and made with only sunshine (no harsh chemicals!) this San Juan Island Sea Salt and Pepper Salt spice duo will take ALL of your cooking and baking to the next level.