Out of interest, why do you prefer a salt grinder? I've never understood why these exist. Pepper grinders, absolutely - the aromatics are released on grinding. By not so with salt. Curious if I'm missing something.
You want your anti-caking agent to absorb a lot of moisture and a salt is the way to do it.
The reason to grind your own salt is to get it at the right size.
EDIT: I looked it up. It's supposed to stabilize the iodide. The reason they use corn sugar is that it's cheap. Thankfully there are brands that don't include additives in their salt. I'll have to keep an eye out for them. I already get plenty of iodide in my diet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_ferrocyanide
The amount is small enough, that it is supposed to do no harm, but I just prefer my salt without cyanide.
And even they can be wrong, sure, but I can still avoid poison where possible, so if I see no reason to voluntarily add cyanide on top of all the other shit for no good reason, I simply won't.
If you ate enough salt to reach a toxic dose of sodium ferrocyanide, you’d already be dead from hypernatremia though?
The dose makes the poison.
Yes it does and it all adds up. So why would I add more things, that are poisenous even at small doses, when I can easily avoid it?
No, it doesn't, because sodium ferrocyanide is poorly absorbed in the first place and not bioaccumulative in humans. I suppose you also don't each spinach or almonds either?
But my point is, sodium ferrocyanide intake is not beneficial, (unlike ordinary sodium). Even if it might do no harm, why should I risk even little harm?
And with adding up, well there is a whole libary of other toxic or potentially toxic additives in the normal food you can buy. I prefer to minimize the potential bad intake, that's all.
Some people don't each rice for this reason, but I just eat around it.
Only for substances that accumulate, which is not the case here...
Now if your salt has PFAS sure
NaCl: 3.000 mg·kg−1 [0]
Na4[Fe(CN)6]: 1600–3200 mg·kg−1 [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_chloride
[1] (german, as the english version has no LD50) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natriumhexacyanidoferrat(II)
And the way the salt "tastes" is different because the powder dissolves on your tongue differently/quicker.
Salt "dust" is a really interesting way of adding salt to food -- and you actually end up adding less than larger grains
I've never seen on-the-spot ground salt smaller than the stuff you can buy already grounded. Except if you buy flakes, but then why do so if you want finer salt?
Therefore, grinding things at the last minute makes them taste better, goes the simplification.
Therefore, grinding salt must make it taste better.
But salt is not like the aromatic flavors in a peppercorn. Salt is geologically stable. NaCl itself does not need a last minute grind to retain its salty flavors. NaCl is not a chemically complex flavor.
I qualified that as NaCl specifically because it is faintly possible some of the fancy salts could have their fancy flavors come out better if they are ground, but I'm yet to even notice a difference when any of these are used in food in any manner so I can't judge. Those flavors must be awfully darned stable as it is if they're still hanging around in a 99+% NaCl environment. I'd want to see a specific chemical that can survive that but will suddenly wilt if exposed to oxygen. (We're sure not talking about traditional benzene-ring aromatics at that point!) If there is a difference it is hovering at the very bottom of human detectability.
Salt grinders are annoying. They're hard to use because you're trying to grind a rock, a soft rock sure but still a rock. It's wasted effort, and it occurs to me to wonder if they even do anything to speak of; now I want to find one and compare the before and after of the chunk size; I find myself suspicious that many of them are just theatrics and the salt basically passes through unscathed because "cheap plastic" and "grinding a rock" are not compatible with each other. Even if it does do some real grinding it's still a waste though because it was never necessary, you could just have bought it at the right grain size.
Usually you'd just use two sizes of salt. I don't own a salt grinder, can't remember ever seeing one in a professional kitchen, don't recommend people buy them. But it does produce a particular effect that you could prefer for some applications.
And in fact I suspect popcorn might be one of the places where it would shine. An even background of salt dust with bursts of intense saltiness from larger grains sounds good here. I'm not going to buy a salt grinder to test it but it's not an absurd idea.
I think you’re misunderstanding the use. It’s a different goal from grinding spices. It’s functional. And I’ve never seen powdered salt selling anywhere in Canada. (Except for expensive artisan stuff). So, the best way to achieve it is with a grinder+rock salt. I’ve been using a simple Amazon grinder and it’s easy to use.
Powdered salt tastes different not because of a differing chemical composition, but because of its different physical nature + your tongue.
Or... it's an after the fact rationalization for the cargo cult!
At best this might be your goal, for whatever reason. 99% of the people who cargo cult a salt grinder don't have that reason - and regular sold salt would be 100% OK for their purposes.
Right off the bat any real consideration will make you aware that large particles will distribute very differently from small particles of the same volume.
Additionally that large particles will be substantively different from small particles in how they interact with the toungue. Eg large particles will "burn" more due to their extreme concentration and will be effectively "hot spots" of seasoning.
From just that it would be apparent that there would be truth to the claim of substantial difference in experience when using the two forms.
Right?
I only realize that I've never thought of comparing, but I've got the habit of using unground salt when cooking. My grandmother used to do this for some reason, so I picked it up.
Unground salt is also useful for cleaning things, like cooking pans.
It's therefore easier to only buy salt in one big pack that lasts forever.
A 1 kilo bag is like 0,23 EUR
In my neck of the woods, unground salt is the most expensive kind, because the only place you can find it is in upscale gourmet stores.
I was recently planning to get back to a regular pestle/mortar setup after yet another costly failure. Did you manage to find a way to work this around?
There are ceramic grinders now. I'd expect those to not rust, but I don't know how long they stay sharp.
Blade also gets kicked around more going around the salt instead of grinding through, more bending = shorter lifespan.
I've successfully used this method on a sun gear for a planetary gear box designed for a low speed, high torque application. Due to mechanical constraints, the gear only had about 1.2mm of wall thickness at a 5mm radius, and it was prone to shearing off. Remelting it in salt solved the shearing, without having to redesign anything else.
Totally without evidence.
For some reason, normal salt just sticks on the top of the tomato despite it being wet and I can "taste" the salt not just saltiness. However, with crunched salt crystals, they basically dissolve and disappear into the moisture of the tomato. This just tastes better too.
Don't ask me why or how it all happens, it's just what I've found using my taste buds.
It's nothing special, some no-name Himalayan pink salt in a plastic grinder.
According to the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements, tests have shown that the population in the United States is “iodine sufficient.” Most Americans who eat a varied diet get enough iodine even if they don’t use iodized salt. They are at little risk of iodine deficiency*
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/well/eat/should-we-be-buy...
I think the “varied diet” usually means Americans get enough through non-home use iodized salt (like processed/restaurant foods). As the article says, seafood (plant or not) and dairy are good iodine sources, if you consume them.
It links Americans being iodine sufficient to getting varied diet but that’s not a conclusion made by the source from what I can see.
The article also says bread is a good source of iodine when the source says it’s a very poor source of iodine.
So I think the article is making stuff up, linking a source but hoping no one will actually read it, and probably written by someone trying to get iodine supplements removed.
Normally I’d expect to see this kind of writing from some blog but not the NYT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_salt
> Some salts mined in Pakistan are not suitable for food or industrial use without purification due to impurities... Although a study of pink salts commercially available in Australia showed Himalayan salt to contain higher levels of a range of elements, including calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, aluminum, barium, silicon, and sulfur, and reduced levels of sodium, compared to table salt, the authors concluded that "exceedingly high intake" (a level in excess of the recommended daily salt intake by almost 600%) would be required for the differences to be clinically significant, levels at which any potential nutritional benefit would be outweighed by the risks of elevated sodium consumption such an intake would entail.
I've never really like iodized table salt, the pink salt tastes "right" to me.
Usually you see anti-caking agents and Iodide added.