Four ways to reduce unwanted iodized table salt reactions when boiling pasta | Hacker News Reader

Four ways to reduce unwanted iodized table salt reactions when boiling pasta

acs.org

9 pointsleephillips6 comments

This is super interesting and not something I’d have ever thought about. I’d assume you’d want to also use noniodized salt in any context where you’re boiling/simmering tap water for an extended period, e.g. for soups, curries, and such.

Will probably tweak my cooking habits thanks to this. Thanks for the share!

It never occurred to me, either, but I’m not a chemist. Makes me a little happier that the water is not chlorinated where I live.

I got a master’s degree in biochemistry, and the thought just never occurred to me. I could have told you if you asked that iodine and chlorine could potentially react to product probably toxic stuff, but I for whatever reason had never actually thought about this particular combination of iodine- and chlorine-containing things. Glad someone else did!

The article implies that you have to buy kosher or fancy gourmet salt if you don't want iodine.

That seems weird, every supermarket I can think of has "regular" plain old Morton salt in clearly labeled non-iodized canisters alongside iodized stuff.

Also, as a chemical-phobe, why would I want Himalayan or sea salt with literally a million times more chemicals?

It’s true, regular non-iodized salt also seems generally preferable to me if the goal is to avoid potentially harmful chemical byproducts. I never looked into how they make sea salt, but without some kind of purification it’s going to have lots of stuff in it. And of course what gives Himalayan salt its color is impurities. I guess whether one should be concerned just depends on which impurities!

My impression is that the cheap stuff comes from mines, which are dried up ancient oceans.

Ancient oceans...that weren't full of humanity's toxic waste...

I'm not saying mined salt is healthy before it's purified, I have no idea.

It's just that superficially, I don't get why the "healthy" choice is obviously the kind with microplastics and Fukushima goodness and a million other things nobody's catalogued that can't be in the mined stuff.

But it's not romantic to get your table salt from the Detroit salt mine, which is probably why they produce salt for road de-icing these days.

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