Why is Kosher salt better than non-iodized table salt

I regularly read in cook books how much better kosher salt is than table salt - most recently today in my new copy of Low and Slow 2:

These course , flaky salts are free of iodine and anticaking agents ... and they have a better flavor and texture

- Well, they clearly are not free of anticaking agents.

Ingredients in Morton table salt : Salt, Calcium Silicate ( an anti-caking agent )
Ingredients in Morton Kosher Salt: Salt, Yellow Prussiate of Soda ( Anti-caking agent )

Is Yellow Prussiate of Soda less bad than Calcium Silicate??

Hi,

I have no idea about the anti-caking issues.

I think it is what you get used to. If you use Kosher, then switch to table salt: it is easy to over salt. By volume, you are not getting the same amount of salt: Kosher has larger flakes and is lighter and table salt is smaller, denser and weighs more for the same volume.

I remember when Jazzfood was in Ireland. He was searching high and low for Kosher salt. I learned later he finally settled on sea salt, which is not necessarily pure.

If you want pure salt without any anti-caking additives, buy canning salt. It's only ingredient is salt. Canned food using table salt will darken due to anti-caking additives. They darken anyway, though using pure salt slows it down somewhat.

Regards,

lougord99 wrote:I regularly read in cook books how much better kosher salt is than table salt - most recently today in my new copy of Low and Slow 2:

These course , flaky salts are free of iodine and anticaking agents ... and they have a better flavor and texture

- Well, they clearly are not free of anticaking agents.

Ingredients in Morton table salt : Salt, Calcium Silicate ( an anti-caking agent )
Ingredients in Morton Kosher Salt: Salt, Yellow Prussiate of Soda ( Anti-caking agent )

Is Yellow Prussiate of Soda less bad than Calcium Silicate??

Actually, there are no additives at all in Diamond Crystal kosher salt, or at least none listed.

Texture is also another attribute that's typically different between Kosher salt and table salt. Kosher tends to have bigger, less uniform pieces.

So depending on your application, there's a couple of reasons Kosher may be superior or preferable to table.

=R=

There are some extremely sensitive individuals, such as Gary Wiviott, or the "Salt Prick" as Mike Sula once dubbed him in a Reader review, who can tell if the salt is iodized just by the taste, which they do not like. People of such refined palate, however, are very rare.

Gary is experiencing placebo effect. Nothing wrong with that.

http://www.emro.who.int/publications/emhj/0202/05.htm

I'm referring to table salt without Iodine, which is what I always use.

Back in the day, I had at least 5 different types of salt in my cupboard. I realized that I didn't have the slightest idea why and that I certainly couldn't taste any difference. Now I only use table salt, unless the recipe calls for kosher salt and I am to lazy to look up the conversion.

lougord99 wrote:I'm referring to table salt without Iodine, which is what I always use.

Well again, Diamond Crystal Kosher salt contains no iodine or anti-caking agents. It's just salt. I like the variable grain size for finishing because it adds some texture. I also use Diamond Crystal Kosher salt in cures and brines, since I prefer knowing I'm using nothing but salt in those applications. How does iodine or an anti-caking agent affect a long-term cure? I hope to never find out.

I have dozens of different salts in the house. I tend to receive them as gifts. There's definitely a noticeable flavor difference between some of them but that could be attributable to a variety of factors, including grain size and shape.

=R=

Thanks. I'll try the Diamond Crystal.

Well you got me!
Don;t know when Morton started putting any additional chemicals in Kosher salt?
Salt is salt but it's the different crystal structure and/or any impurities that give rise to the different tastes perceived by some. Once it's mixed or added to food, there is no difference.
I use Cary Pickling & Canning salt for most additions in food prep because it's cheap. Nothing but salt, I just re-read the label. It has very fine crystals similar to table salt.
Neither Morton Kosher or Diamond Kosher specify they are for canning.
The only affect of Iodine and any anti-caking agent would be on color.
I use Morton Kosher for most surface addition over Diamond because I prefer the texture over Diamond.
For a real salt kick on buttered fresh baked bread(we use unsalted butter), I have Fleur de Sel It's large crystals give you a kick. For seasoning roasts for the BBQ and oven, it's Baleine brand Sel De Mer Gros(coarse), the crystals are very large and do not dissipate in dry roasting. It does have Sodium Iodide so it is not used as an ingredient in my cooking., just a surface agent.
There are others but I rarely use them including the aforementioned Morton Seal Salt which I have an unopened can of!
Table salt has very fine crystals and I didn't know you could actually purchase non-iodized table salt but I just checked the Morton website and it does exist!
So I suspect that somewhere along the way Morton added the Prussiate and the word is not yet widely known nor is the word on non-iodized table salt..I assume the Calcium silicate is in the non-iodized.
If you don't want any additives, switch to salt such as Cary.
Frankly we have not used table salt for decades, I just don't like it's fine crystals and I still prefer Morton Kosher for it's grain size and density over Diamond.
We use none of the colored salts because I don't know whether the impurities are measured.
I long asked the importer of the then popular pink Himalayan salt and salt blocks if an analysis had been conducted for impuities and never received a reply. Heavy metals such as are analyzed for in some dried sea weed products are a concern of mine.
I'll stick to Cary for canning, curing and preservation.
Morton kosher for most salt addition in cooking.
Sel De Mer Gros for dry roasting and Fleur de Sel for bread and butter.-Richard

kenji wrote:Gary is experiencing placebo effect. Nothing wrong with that.
http://www.emro.who.int/publications/emhj/0202/05.htm

Nonsense.

While I agree it would be difficult to detect iodized salt from non used in small quantity as an ingredient in a strong flavored item such as garlic bread when used in quantity with a limited number of ingredients such as brine the difference is delectable.

Many years past I got into an internet pissing contest (oh the good ol' days) and posted pictures over the course of weeks of 26 different salts I had at home. I did not go out and buy any, that would have been cheating, and at Barn & Company we use kosher salt by the case in brine, rub, finishing and as a basic ingredient. This by way of saying I may not be a scientist, but do have experience and a decent palate.

While I still have multiple salts at home my day to day use is kosher salt for cooking and Maldon as finishing salt. I like the flake size/texture of Maldon sea salt.

G Wiv wrote:While I agree it would be difficult to detect iodized salt from non used in small quantity as an ingredient in a strong flavored item such as garlic bread when used in quantity with a limited number of ingredients such as brine the difference is delectable.

Delectable? Detectable?

David Hammond wrote:Delectable? Detectable?

Either works, and thanks for noticing.

G Wiv wrote:Nonsense.

You dispute a Jordanian pickle study from the WHO.

Noted.

A big reason for it's usage in pro kitchens is that most salt seasoning is done w/the hand i.e. fingers, not out of a shaker, and smaller salt crystals = more salt. If you've got 6 line cooks seasoning a steak or pasta (or whatever) w/fine grain salt out of hand, it's easier to overseason. I'm w/Gary. Ksalt for cooking/seasoning, and Maldon (or some similar larger flaked salt) for finishing.

I have an array of salts including canning/pickling and Diamond Kosher. I also keep fine, non-iodized for baking. I keep my gris, portuguese cream, etc. for finishing, even in deserts where I want the audible crunch of salt.

I see Morton iodized and non-iodized table salt side by side in the grocery store all the time; I'm a bit surprised to learn some did not know it was available in both forms. I am not a sensitive enough taster to be able to tell the difference and I am all for the health benefits of iodine, so I buy iodized table salt for measuring (as in baking recipes) and filling salt shakers --- not that we are big salt sprinklers.

I keep a little dish of kosher salt by the stove for pinching and sprinkling while cooking. Having larger grains, it's more convenient for pinching a bit and brushing off one's fingers afterwards.

"I see Morton iodized and non-iodized table salt side by side in the grocery store all the time; I'm a bit surprised to learn some did not know it was available in both forms."

Growing up until 13 near Boston, iodine was not a concern in the diet.
Move to Wisconsin and they periodically gave us Goiter pills until Iodized salt was widely prevelant.
About 30 years ago when I started cooking, I switched to Kosher salt and because iodised salt was in many prepared and fast food, non-iodized Kosher salt was not a concern to me but at that time I never saw non-iodized table salt for sale.
Today, there is no concern about non-iodized salt because it's use is OK, one gets the required Iodine from many other food sources.-Richard

A while ago, I had to/got to learn a lot about the US salt market for work. My understanding is that Morton's coarse flake salt ("kosher") is totally unique and proprietary- it's made using ancient heavy machinery that compresses and crushes the salt between mammoth metal rollers. Diamond uses a traditional pan evaporation method that creates a light, smaller crystal that is not actually a "flake". This leads to quite a bit more mass per volume of the Morton kosher product and the well-documented screw ups with recipes written with one or the other in mind. The advent of "foodie-ism" apparently led to serious shortages of the coarse flake product at Morton. Not sure how they've kept up with demand because it sounded like creating a new giant steampunk salt flattening contraption would be tough. Also, while one might assume that Diamond is from Brooklyn or something to hear East Coast folks waxing about bubbe's kitchen, Diamond is and always was a Detroit-area product.

budrichard wrote:... and because iodised salt was in many prepared and fast food...
Today, there is no concern about non-iodized salt because it's use is OK, one gets the required Iodine from many other food sources.-Richard

Personally, I don't know, but the Dr. Weil article I linked to says that prepared foods are not made with iodized salt. Fast foods, he doesn't say. He does mention other sources of iodine in a healthy, well-rounded diet. But I don't think that one can assume that just because prepared foods and fast foods contain plentiful salt that it's iodized salt.

p.s., the Dr. Weil article also mentions that sea salts contain trace amounts of iodine, which should come as no surprise.

Mined salt is from ancient sea beds that were deposited eons ago.
It's all the same salt and the Iodine content or lack of iodine content is the same for sea or non-iodized salt. While refined mined salt may not contain all the trace minerals of evaporated sea salt, I don;t believe that sea salt is inherently richer in Iodine. It's the consumption of fish that reduces the requirement for additional Iodine for individuals near the coastal regions.
You can use this referenced procedure to test your salt for Iodine.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... dine-salt/
-Richard
Let me be clear, don't believe that using 'sea' salt will allow for proper Iodine consumption over using non-iodized salt. One must obtain sufficient Iodine from somewhere.
From the best source that I can find, http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iodine ... fessional/

"Thanks to a more national food supply, iodized salt and other factors, iodine deficiency is now uncommon in North America."

Several years ago I bought a pound of Pacific sea salt from a vendor outside of Manzanillo. Used it for about six months and thought it was great.Then, one of my friends who was along on that trip, sent me an article from a Mexican paper that 60% of the sea salt samples from that area were found to contain fecal matter. Oh well, it was a bargain.

dukesdad wrote: sea salt samples from that area were found to contain fecal matter. Oh well, it was a bargain.

As I read along with this I was thinking it was gonna end with "Oh well, sh*t happens!"