Sea salt

Sea salt, obtained by evaporation of sea water, is a salt used as an ingredient in cooking and in products such as cosmetics. Its mineral content gives it a different taste from table salt, which is mostly sodium chloride that is either purified from sea salt or made from rock salt (halite), a mineral that is dug from mines. Table salt also sometimes contains additives, such as iodides (as a dietary supplement) and various anticaking agents. Various areas of the world produce specialized sea salt, including France, Ireland, and Cape Cod. One common use of sea salt is in premium potato chips. Sea salt is generally more expensive than table salt.

Related Topics:
Sea water - Salt - Table salt - Sodium chloride - Rock salt - Halite - Iodide - Dietary supplement - France - Ireland - Cape Cod - Potato chips

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In several countries, including China and India, sea salt was the sole source of salt. Regulating the sales of sea salt was highly profitable for the governments. About 110 BC, Emperor Han Wu Di of China started the monopoly of the salt trade, making salt piracy a crime worthy of capital punishment. In 1930, the British government of India imposed a salt tax, which led to the famous Salt Satyagraha from March 12 to April 5 when Mohandas Gandhi led thousands of people to the sea to collect their own salt rather than pay the salt tax.

Related Topics:
China - India - 110 BC - Emperor Han Wu Di of China - Monopoly - Capital punishment - 1930 - Salt Satyagraha - Mohandas Gandhi

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Sea salt is thought by some to be a healthier alternative to table salt, since it lacks artificial chemicals used in processing. Despite the iodine content of seawater, however, sea salt, as it is typically manufactured, does not contain as much of the essential nutrient iodine as does iodized table salt. Therefore, those whose diet does not contain a large proportion of seafood (such as ocean fish and shellfish, which tend to concentrate iodine in their bodies) should use at least some iodized table salt as well as sea salt.

Related Topics:
Iodine - Seafood - Fish - Shellfish

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Its possible health benefits notwithstanding, sea salt is often portrayed as being superior to ordinary table salt by gourmets, even despite that fact that most sea salt contains less than twenty percent actual salt by weight. Well known sea salts include fleur de sel (literally "flower of salt" in French) and Hawaiian sea salt. The former is considered by many to be the pinnacle of sea salts, having a near-mythic aura as a result of its long history of production, its price, the large amounts of labor required to harvest it, and the small region from which it is produced. Supposedly formed when winds blow in just the right way over the summer sea off the coast of the village of Guerande in the province of Brittany, fleur de sel is harvested manually by workers who comb off only the top layer, the lightest and "purest", of the evaporate in a tradition that has not changed for centuries. The latter salt is notable for its distinctive red-brown color, derived from the presence of the halophile micro-algae Dunaliella Salina, which synthesises the orangish beta-carotene in large quantities.

Related Topics:
Fleur de sel - French - Hawaiian - Guerande - Brittany - Halophile - Algae - Dunaliella Salina - Beta-carotene

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