10 Types of Salt, Benefits and Differences You Should Know

Healthbeautyidea.com | Types of Salt You Should Know – Salt can be said to be one of the most important cooking spices that makes it always in every kitchen. Without salt, a lot of food will taste bland and bad.

With its savory taste, salt is always suitable for sprinkling in meats, nuts, etc. Not only delicious food, salt also has many benefits for health.

In addition, the salt turns out to have substances that help treat wounds. Salt also can cope with acne and also counteract bad breath. However, consuming a lot of salt is not recommended because it can increase blood pressure.

Read also: Bad habits for your heart.

Well, salt with millions of benefits, where does it come from? Salt generally comes from seawater. Many salt farmers open the salt fields near the ocean. But salt is not forever from seawater. There is also a salt from mountain water. 

Salt turns also have a variety of types that can be distinguished from physical forms and benefits. Even the flavor of salt is not always salty, can also be bitter and sour. There is also a sweet salt, but some sweet salt is poisonous.

Different types of salt contain different nutrients.

Not all salts are made in the same way. Not only about taste and texture, but also mineral content and sodium content.

Keep in mind, salt is a crystal mineral made of two elements, sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl). Sodium and chlorine are essential to your body, as it helps our brains and nerves transmit electrical impulses.

Most of the world’s salts are harvested from salt mines or by vaporize seawater and other mineral-rich waters. Salt also has a variety of functions, the most common is to spice up food.

In addition, salt is also often used as a food preservative because bacteria are difficult to grow in salt-rich environments.

Different types of salt you need to know.

There are several types of salt that you can add in your cooking. Before deciding to choose the most suitable salt, let’s recognize the variety of salts. In America, there are at least five common types of salt. It is a kitchen / table salt, sea salt, kosher salt, Himalayan pink Salt and Celtic sea salt.

Table salt.

Table salt is the usual salt you use when cooking. This salt has gone through a lot of processing so it has a very fine texture and has also been enriched with iodine. Iodine is one of the essential minerals needed by the body.

Deficiency of iodine intake can cause children to experience mental delays, hypothyroidism, and various other health problems. With the addition of iodine in salt, the disease caused by iodine deficiency is preventable.

Sea Salt.

If you’ve ever tried sea salt, then you know there’s a huge texture difference when compared to traditional table salts. Sea salt is often less pounded, meaning a larger salt flakes.

This type of salt is made by vaporize seawater and usually contains a number of small minerals such as potassium, iron, and zinc. Although Sea salt is definitely a better choice than processed table salt, this salt is still not the best.

The reason is because of pollutants in the sea. The oceans have become the disposal of toxic poisons such as mercury and more. As with pollution affecting our fish supply, sea salt can also contain a number of heavy metals, such as lead and mercury.

Kosher salt.

This one salt is also commonly found in home kitchens. The size of kosher salt is large and coarse. Its large flavor is perfect for flavored meat that will give a blast of flavor to the cuisine. Although large in size, it feels fast spreading and easy to dissolve in food.

On the market, there are kosher salts that have been given iodine addition and not. We recommend that you look at the label before buying it.

Himalayan Salt.

These Himalayan salts are harvested from Pakistan close to the Himalayas. The pink color of the salt comes from the rich mineral content contained in it, such as magnesium, potassium, and calcium.

Bali Salt

Seawater and geographical factors in Bali make this salt shape very beautiful, the confluence of cold sea water from the north of Bali with hot sea water in the Lombok Strait, resulting in a unique salt shape that is a pyramid with a rectangular base but a hollow middle.

This salt comes from the Indian Ocean (the east coast of Bali) formed by nature. With very high quality, Balinese salt is expensive, even one of the most expensive salts in the world. Indonesia exports Bali salt to Japan, Hong Kong, America and Australia.

This salt is widely used by chefs in restaurants and hotels because the taste is not as salty as usual, savory, crispy grain texture and has a fairly high mineral content. Balinese salt is perfect for dessert dishes.

Hawaiian salt

This salt produced in Hawaii (United States) is also called Hawaiian salt pink alaea. Its beautiful color is brick red due to alaea volcanic clay particles when subjected to natural evaporation and contains iron oxide.

Hawaiian salt contains minerals and electrolytes, nutrients from potassium and magnesium can regulate blood pressure and keep bones strong. The strong taste is very suitable for roasting grilled meat or vegetables. With a small amount of sodium chloride in this salt, if consumed it can avoid heart disease, diabetes, stroke and chronic kidneys.

Gray Atlantic Salt

This salt comes from the Atlantic Coast of France and the minerals contained are then absorbed by the clay, making the color of the salt grayish. The sodium content is lower than table salt and the salty taste is greater than that of table salt.

Gray Atlantic salts contain magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium, manganese, iodine and tin. With its rough texture, it is perfect for fish, poultry and meat dishes.

Maidon Salt

This type of salt originated in England, by means of evaporation of seawater on the south east coast of England.  The shape of Maldon salt is like crystal grains that are perfect and proportional to a size of up to 1 cm, so it can give a contrasting effect and texture in food. This salt is suitable for any food such as meat, vegetables, fruit and pastries.

Kala Namak Salt

The salt that we usually use is usually white, but there is a type of black salt that is named Kala Namak. This salt comes from India, its color is not too black, but rather a reddish-gray color.

Kala Namak is a volcanic salt stone that contains magnesium, sulfate, hydrogen sulfide, iodine, manganese, potassium, calcium, low sodium and iron.

Consumption of this black salt can lose weight, overcome difficult bowel movements, prevent cholesterol, relieve itching, increase immunity in the body and lower high blood pressure. In India, Kala Namak is used to make pickles, garnishing and is preferred for vegetarian lovers.

Smoke Yakima Sea Salt

This salt comes from the city of Yakima, United States. When making this salt, it is smoked with apple wood, so it is very suitable for barbeque because the aroma of salt can cause a savory and delicious taste in dishes.

Thank you very much for reading Types of Salt You Should Know, hopefully useful.