Is sea salt better for you than table salt?

Why are manufacturers suddenly advertising that their products are made with sea salt? Is it any healthier than other salt?

Wed, Jun 27 2012 at 12:25 PM

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Healthy Eating

Photo: Dubravko SoriÄ‡/Flickr

Have you noticed that more snacks are being seasoned with sea salt and manufacturers are proudly announcing that information on the front of food packaging? I have. It reminds me of a couple of years ago when soda manufacturers and other processed food manufacturers started announcing that their sodas contained “real sugar” instead of high fructose corn syrup. When consumers started to become leery of high fructose corn syrup, marketers jumped on the chance to make real sugar seem like a health food.

Consumers are also concerned about salt, or sodium. A high intake of sodium can lead to health problems. Many processed and packaged foods contain high levels of sodium to help preserve them and to make them more palatable. Some food manufacturers have begun voluntarily lowering the amount of sodium in their foods. New York City has tried to encourage restaurants and food manufacturers to reduce sodium in foods. It’s clear that health officials and consumers are concerned about sodium in food.

So why would a food package have information about salt on the front of the package? The words on the front are usually there to entice shoppers to pick up the package and buy it. My guess is that there is some idea in the public’s mind that sea salt is healthier than table salt. Is it?

According to the Mayo Clinic, both table salt and sea salt “have the same basic nutritional value, despite the fact that sea salt is often marketed as a more natural and healthy alternative.” They contain equal amounts of sodium chloride, what we usually refer to as simply sodium, by weight. One gram of sea salt and one gram of table salt have the same amount of sodium.

Sea salt, as its name suggests, comes from the sea. It’s what is left behind after the seawater evaporates. It can contain small amounts of whatever minerals might have also been in the water. This can affect color and taste, but not nutrition.

Table salt comes from underground salt deposits. It's processed to remove any minerals and often has iodine added to it. So, if you want your food the least processed it can be, you might want to choose sea salt over table salt in your packaged foods and in the food you cook. However, if you’re choosing a package of potato chips made with sea salt over a package made with plain old salt because you think they’re healthier, you’re falling for a marketing trick. It may affect taste, but it won’t affect the nutrition. The amount of sodium in both are the same.

MNN tease photos of salt scoop and salt shaker: Shutterstock

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Comments: 14

Guest Jan 26 2013 at 1:17 PM

Table salt comes from sea water that evaporated millions of years ago and Sea salt comes from sea water that evaporated last month. With the pollution, PCBs, mercury etc. in the sea water today....I will take the million year old salt.

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cfulton99 Oct 11 2012 at 3:33 PM

I have hypertension and was diagnosed at the age of 30. I have spent 20 years looking at the sodium contents in different salts. They are not the same, for anyone to make such a statement is very irresponsible. Do your own test, the next time you are in the supermarket, pick a natural sea salt, a kosher salt and one name brand. You will be shocked to see the variance in the amount of sodium. lol, the old adage, reading is fundamental.

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lerwe Sep 02 2012 at 1:21 AM

choose what ever salt you like. just remember to take in as much iodine as you need also.

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taishen Aug 27 2012 at 10:43 AM

this is all still very misleading. there is an issue with processed table salt that causes more harm than good and not mentioned at all. HCL is produced from the sodium of the sodium/chloride of natural salt. Sodium from salt is used to cool off the acid as food substances enter the small intestine portion of the digestive track. Lack of digestive sodium - the body goes to its back-up systems and "takes" from them; liver bile, bone sodium, soft tissue calcium in organs, etc....so depletes these systems

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in the body. "Table salt" while processed is highly heated. This creates a non-breakable bond between the sodium and chloride. The body needs the bond broken to use it in digestion....the sodium is used to buffer the acidity of food from the stomach, the chloride used to create HCL (or hydrochloric acid) which is vital to us. HCL destroys most infective organisms and the ones it cant, it strips away the outer protective coating so the body's immune system can destroy it. The lack of HCL also reduces the amount of minerals that are taken up and essential to health. Acid indigestion is actually the the result of too much of the wrong acid - not HCL but Lactic Acid and not enough of the right acid or HCL. Lactic acid is corrosive and causes the food to rot - not digest. HCL heals and cleanses the stomach and small intestines. Lactic acid creates an environment where infective agents can thrive. HCL destroys most infective organisms. So back to highly heated table salt vs. unheated table salt - or sea salt that is not heated........here is where the importance of an unheated natural table salt lies. In the creation of adequate HCL in our bodies. One needs to find not just a sea-salt, but a sea salt that has not been highly process or heated. again, it is the processing with high heat that creates digestive problems, part of the problem with lacking essential minerals, and is the culprit of the massive issues these days with Acid Indigestion and the misinformation being poured out by the antacid industry marketing geniuses!

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Rham Sep 16 2012 at 12:11 AM

you said ""Table salt" while processed is highly heated. This creates a non-breakable bond between the sodium and chloride. The body needs the bond broken to use it in digestion...." that's just nonsense I'm afraid. Learn some basic physics and the chemistry that comes from it. The bond strength of sodium chloride (a chemical bond, made by transferring an electron from the sodium to the chloride ion) is completely unaffected by any heating of the compound, up until the point where it dissociates

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- above the melting point of rocksalt, and an extremely high temperature. But salt (all soluble salts, not just sodium chloride) dissociates easily into its constituent ions when dissolved in water, whether the salt has been 'heated' or not. You also said "Sodium from salt is used to cool off the acid as food substances enter the small intestine portion of the digestive track" -- ('tract', I think) sodium ions (Na+) can't neutralise acids (if that's what you hoped for by 'cooling off '), only bases (alkalis) containing for example hydroxyl ions (OH-) can do that. It is true that adding sodium ions to water shifts the equilibrium between the water's hydrogen and hydroxyl ions to give a lower concentration of hydrogen ions compared to hydroxyl ions, but that does not make the water more alkaline, which is what you want to neutralise an acid. Finally, there is no HCl in your body - hydrogen chloride (which is a gas) is completely dissociated when dissolved in water - as in your body - giving a mixture of free hydrogen ions (that's why the solution is a strong acid) and free chloride ions in the body fluids. The hydrogen ions are what makes the solution acidic. The chloride ions might as well be any other species, like sulphate or carbonate. They don't change the acidity. Learn some chemistry, then talk about it. That said, sea salt has other advantages compared to table (mineral) salt. It contains other ions in addition to hydrogen and chloride; bromine, iodine, sulphate, and phosphate, magnesium and manganese, and these are all necessary in small quantities for proper nutrition.

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rine Aug 05 2012 at 7:59 PM

I wish this article would have been better researched so as to not end up so misleading. One legitimate reason for choosing table salt would be as a source of iodine. Of course iodine is not as hard to come by as some people seem to think. Sea Weed, Potatoes, Most Dairy Products Cranberries, Some Yogurts, and Strawberries are just a few places you can find ample servings of iodine. The major benefit of using sea salt is that most brands don't include the same "free flowing agents" that you find in

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regular table salt. SILICA.. There is a lot of misinformation going around and a general lack of understanding but when you put together what we do know it's pretty straightforward. Yes Silica is important to human health but not the Silicone Dioxide added to table salt. This form of silica is not soluble in water, not as easily absorbed by your bones and can cause tissue damage as it travels around in your vascular system. As if excess sodium wasn't bad enough for your heart health, table salt is ravaging your veins with this additive. I'd recommend using sea salt or any salt high in minerals and sans any "free flowing agent" and then compensating your diet with iodine rich foods. As for how to consume silica.. I wouldn't worry about it too much as silica is the second most prevalent element in nature after oxygen. It is found in many water sources and absorbed by most plants quite readily. If you really feel you need to ensure you are getting some silica in your diet look for silicic acids as they ARE water soluble and won't damage your blood vessels.

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Paul Jul 26 2012 at 6:52 AM

You must be kidding me !!! 90% of salt comes from ponds filled with salt water and water evaporated to leave the salt remaining which is then bulldozed up, cleaned and washed and sold as sea salt and table salt !! Get real, there is no difference !!

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Nienke Jul 07 2012 at 8:47 AM

May I add that dead sea salt is mainly sold as table salt, the other containments besides NaCl ofcourse are extracted.

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Liz Jul 05 2012 at 2:32 PM

I have to say though, I use less salt when using sea salt as there is a stronger flavor. The nutrition might be the same for the same amounts, but when you have to use less for the same results, I think sea salt is the healthier alternative.

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Tarrant Jul 04 2012 at 9:22 AM

One thing I didn't see discussed is iodine. I've heard that there are more people having thyroid issues because they choose sea salt over table salt, yet they don't get any other source of supplemental iodide. One friend of mine went through some health issues because of this she said...is it really a problem?

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cfulton99 Oct 11 2012 at 3:37 PM

You are 100% correct, using salt with iodine is very beneficial. if you don't get enough, your thyroid elongates in an attempt to get more. For most people, it means trips to Dr's and annoying tests.

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katqueue Jul 08 2012 at 12:16 PM

I was looking for more mention of iodized salt as well. I have Graves' Disease, an autoimmune thyroid condition that makes my throid produce too much thyroid hormone becasue it doesn't think there is any at all. The thyroid takes in iodine for use in metabolic regulation. Basically they started adding iodine to salt when they realized that people are becoming hypothyroid (their metabolic rates were slowing and people were getting bigger) and needed more iodine. Unfortunately, that means that I need

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to avoid iodized salt because my body uses it to attack me (don't quote me on that, it's my own personal belief and not supported by the scientific community) And that also means that people need to supplement their iodine so as to not get hypothyroid especially if they have any family history of thyroid problems. It's also a good idea for all women over the age of 25 (yes, I said 25) to get their thyroid hormones checked. between 7 and 10 women get thyroid conditions versus just 1 man developing a thyroid condition.