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Sea salt vs. table salt

rustypouch

Philosopher
rustypouch
Joined
Mar 1, 2003
Messages
6,745
I recently got a piercing, and the piercer recomended using a sea salt solution to cleanse the piercing until it could heal. He specifically said not to use table salt. I asked why, and he just said that sea salt was "better."

I was wondering if anyone knew the rationale behind this? To my thinking, both are sodium chloride, so why would the sea salt be better?

I want to know if this has some scientific basis or if it is just new age crap.
 
Sea salt has more 'impurities' like small amounts of iodine which can actually affect things like the taste of baking.

Generally table salt is almost pure, but personally I don't think it would make much difference and would recommend sterile swabs anyway.
 
Table salt is almost purely sodium chloride, with a small amount of calcium silicate added to prevent it from caking and help it flow freely. Table salt is a fine, granulated-evaporated salt with a relatively small surface area, which makes this type of salt difficult to adhere to food. It also has a very sharp taste. Iodine is added to some table salts for health reasons.

Sea salt ...is made from evaporation of seawater. These are harvested and sold with no sort of processing and can be finely grained or in the form of crystals. The only ingredients this salt contains are the minerals present in the seawater, one of them being sodium chloride. Hence, it may taste slightly different from other salts. Most sea salt has good adhering qualities and solubility. Because of its "natural" state, it is more expensive than either table salt or kosher salt.
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- http://staging.foodtv.com/cooking101/qandasalt/0,7503,,00.html

:)
 
EdipisReks said:
sea salt tastes better on french fries.
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And not just on fries. I prefer it to regular salt. But that just may be the sailor in me....
 
Captain_Snort said:
Sea salt has more 'impurities' like small amounts of iodine which can actually affect things like the taste of baking.
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Other impurities include pet waste, cigarette butts, and everything else that goes into the storm drains of coastal communities, along with agricultural runoff, etc.
 
Not to mention that they charge you more for doing less work. All you have to do with sea salt is run seawater through a particle filter and then let it evaporate.

The only area that sea salt may bea regular salt in is the taste. Once dissolved its still salt water.
Maybe sea salt works on the same principle as herbal remedies. Let's see, there may be a useful compound in this thing so instead of separating it out and only using that compound (reducing side effects and increasing effectiveness), let's just use the whole thing. It will work better because its "natural" and anyway we're too lazy to do any real work.
 
arcticpenguin said:
Other impurities include pet waste, cigarette butts, and everything
else that goes into the storm drains of coastal communities, along
with agricultural runoff, etc.
Click to expand...
That's why I buy imported sea salt, costs twice as much, but it's all natural.
 
I rarely add salt to anything. It makes me sick when I see people in cafes and restaurants dousing something in salt. Even eggses or bacon. Bizarre.

I'd challenge someone to tell whether I've used sea salt or otherwise when I cook, except that that would involve someone eating my cooking.
 
ratcomp1974 said:
I rarely add salt to anything. It makes me sick when I see people in cafes and restaurants dousing something in salt. Even eggses or bacon. Bizarre.

I'd challenge someone to tell whether I've used sea salt or otherwise when I cook, except that that would involve someone eating my cooking.
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Salt is only good for one purpose, and thats on hard boiled eggs


I never add salt to my food, have a friend who takes food with his salt, one night when we where down at the marina (I sail) we ordered food, the kitchen staff knew he took salt, so thought they would mega saltify his food and see if he added any more. Unfortunately I ordered what he usually orders ad I spat out my first mouthful and went and complained loudly to the manager while I saw the kitchen staff looking shocked. I did get al my drinks that night free and a free meal.
 
I have believed that sea salt contains a variety of salts and table salt is primarily sodium chloride.

This web site for artificial sea water seems to confirm this notion.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/Urchin/seawater.htm

Why should table salt be different than salt from the ocean. Doesn't table salt mostly come from underground deposits, that were created when the ocean evaporated over them? Hmm, maybe not.

Oh and thanks for the info that it tastes different. I didn't know that. I think I'd like to try some.
 
i'm gonna start a letter writing campaign to John Ashcroft. people who don't salt their food are unamerican. especially the foreigners residing in other countries.
 
"Regular" salt IS sea salt.

We get salt in two ways:

"sea salt" is made by pumping sea water into evaporation ponds. The water evaporates, leaving the salt that was dissolved in the sea water behind.

"Regular salt" is mined. The salt deposits where formed long ago in shallow seas where the water evaporated, leaving behind salt. These deposits eventually were buried, and now they are harvested in salt mines.

It's the exact same process- salty water evaporates, leaving the salt behind.

It's strange that "sea salt" is called "natural", when it is in fact man made, while "regular salt", formed by a completely natural process, is thoght of by many as "artificial".

Any taste difference in salts comes more from the texture of the salt grains than anything else.
 
...and since there were fewer supertankers plying the waves in the Triassic, we might actually expect mined salt to have fewer man made impurities (not counting additives) than modern sea salt.

Might be the odd trace of coprolite of course.
 
The thing about sea salt and Kosher salt is that the crystals are 'bigger' in the sense of the size of the grain. As stated before larger crystals are great on French Fries. I also use it on steak when grilling. I seem to use a lot less salt as it tends to stay on the surface and adds more to the flavor than regular Morton-type salt.
 
rustypouch said:
I recently got a piercing, and the piercer recomended using a sea salt solution to cleanse the piercing until it could heal. ...nt to know if this has some scientific basis or if it is just new age crap.
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WAIT!! Stop!!!

This is not about EATING the salt, it is about rinsing pierced flesh!

Having had enough infections in my piecings... get down to the pharmacy and sterilized saline solution.
 
Piercings

Head down to the drug store and invest six bucks in a box of benzalkonium chloride antiseptic wipes. If you can't afford the cash, raid your company first aid kit ;). You should get about 20 in a box, which will last you about a week. Wipe the piercing down once in the morning, once sometime in the afternoon, and once after showering. If your daily schedule makes you sweat or get abnormally dirty, use more frequently.

One sodium naproxin pill in the morning and one in the evening (read the warning label prior to use) will keep the swelling and any pain down.

Don't play with your jewelry or touch it for unnecessary reasons; playing with it will expose the wound to open air and the bacteria on your hands, leading to infections.

That's just in general, specific areas (cartilage, navel, tongue) will have other care methods.
 
According to this web site table salt is almost pure sodium clhloride with a few additives whereas sea salt is a mixture of many different compounds of which sodium chloride is still the primary one:
http://www.curezone.com/foods/saltcure.asp

The site looks like it was straight out of woo-woo land, but does anybody have any opinions about whether there are any compounds in sea salt that are particularly beneficial to us?
 
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