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Comment by renw0rp | Hacker News Reader

I've asked my mother the exact same question a couple of weeks ago. She said, that as salt is hygroscopic "table salt" comes with anti-cacking agents. Salt which comes as larger crystals doesn't need them.

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What's wrong with the anti-caking agents?

I wouldn't trust anyone that is against cake

Especially not an agent.

Well it's not salt for one.

I mean, calcium silicate _is_ a salt. As is sodium ferrocyanate.

You want your anti-caking agent to absorb a lot of moisture and a salt is the way to do it.

I guess it'd depend on what the agent was, but either way, it means some amount of the salt you're pouring over your food isn't salt. Eliminate the non-salt from your salt and you never have to worry about what might be wrong with it or how much non-salt you're paying for. That's the reason I've switched to shredding my own parmesan cheese instead of just shaking it out of a can since the cans in some cases contain ~10% cellulose.

Table salt is just sea salt (the stuff mined from underground just comes from an ocean that dried up a few million years ago) and is full of other compounds beyond NaCl.

None of which is sodium or potassium ferrocyanide, the chief anticaking agent. Otherwise it wouldn't crystallize.

Sure, but anti-caking agents are an adulteration of the original product you mined out of the ground.

Table salt often contains iodine which will alter the flavor.

The reason to grind your own salt is to get it at the right size.

You need iodine.

From salt? Don't I get iodine from my food?

Usually not enough elemental iodine unless you eat a lot of sea life.

I just bought salt and the ingredient list (sadly) is: sea salt, tricalcium phosphate (free-flowing agent), dextrose, potassium iodide.

Why the hell are they adding corn sugar to salt?

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.

They are toxic.

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.

I guess you will still get it in most restaurants.

As well as in any processed food I am buying, yes I am aware of that. But when I have the choice, I prefer the non toxic salt (and it is still mindblowing to me, how it became normal to add cyanide to salt in the first place).

Same boat (non-toxic salt). I've mostly switched to MSG (except for paella), and much prefer it.

I mean, table salt in general carries pollutants from its source, e.g. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro...

Yup, there are cheap salts with their own toxins and even expensive Himalaya salt can probably contain bad stuff. But at least here in germany, there are (non government) organisations that test food for their poisons and you can buy their test results, also for salt, in the shape of a magazine.

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.

>They are toxic.

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.

"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?

>Yes it does and it all adds up.

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?

"spinach" nope and of almonds not too many 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.

Also watch out for the arsenic in rice.

Some people don't each rice for this reason, but I just eat around it.

It adds to the richness IMO.

>Yes it does and it all adds up

Only for substances that accumulate, which is not the case here...

Now if your salt has PFAS sure

Me too - though the LD50s (rat, oral) of both are quite close:

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)

With ferrocyanide in particular ([Fe(CN)6]4−), the reason cyanide (CN-) is such bad news is also the reason it's safe complexed to iron: Iron-Cyanide coordination is very strongly favored by thermodynamics and kinetics, so it likes to stick to iron, sticks very quickly, and un-sticks itself very slowly. When cyanide is not already coordinated to iron, it coordinates to the iron in hemoglobin (+ COX enzymes in mitochondria, and other less immediately important enzymes) and makes them not work, basically forever. But when CN- is already stuck coordinated to free iron, it doesn't really fall off enough to stick itself to enzymes in any meaningful amount. It would be more of a problem if CN- accumulated, but it's metabolized and excreted quickly enough to not be a big deal. The LD50 values basically reflect this.

Starch is a common anti-caking agent. Too much of it will make you fat.

Not in salt though, there it would cause more problems by making sticky mess.

Sir, this a discussion about popcorn.

That’s not enough to justify the grinder. Buy a box of Diamond Crystal Kosher salt. It has the perfect texture for keeping in a salter on the counter so it’s easy to grab a pinch.

kosher salt is way too coarse for popcorn, so I don't think it eliminates the need for the grinder

You can control the coarseness by rubbing it between your fingers as you apply it. You may have seen video of chefs doing this.

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