Sea salt

Sea salt is salt made when seawater dries up. People have been making sea salt since very old times, even before history was written down. We call it by different names, like bay salt or solar salt, but it is just salt from the sea.

People use sea salt to add flavor to food, to help cook food, and to keep food fresh for longer. It is also used in things like lotions and creams that we put on our skin. Like the salt that comes from deep inside the Earth, sea salt has been an important part of our lives for thousands of years.

Composition

Sea salts sold in stores have different chemical make-ups, even though they all mostly contain sodium chloride. Besides sodium chloride, they can have small amounts of other salts made from calcium, potassium, and magnesium. These extra salts are found in much smaller amounts. While store-bought sea salts change, the salt in the ocean stays about the same.

Historical production

See also: History of salt

Sea salt has been used for a very long time. It is mentioned in old Buddhist writings from around the mid-5th century BC. Sea salt is made by letting seawater dry up, a process called evaporation. In places with warm, sunny weather, the sun does all the work. But in other places, people have used fires to help dry the water.

Today, most sea salt is made in warm areas, especially around the Mediterranean. These places are called salt works. Long ago, people built places to make salt where they could sell it, had calm coastlines, could use sun or cheap fuels, and had other jobs nearby like farming or tanning.

In old Roman times, people used special clay containers to help dry the seawater. They would collect the salt and clean it before selling it.

In the Visayas Islands of the Philippines, people used to make salt from coconut husks, driftwood, or other plants soaked in seawater. They would burn these plants to make ash, then mix in seawater and let it dry. This way of making salt is now rare.

In the past, enslaved Africans were made to collect salt on islands in the West Indies, Bahamas, and Turks and Caicos Islands.

Today in the US, salt called "sea salt" might not always come from the sea, but it must be very pure.

Taste

Some people think sea salt tastes better and feels different than regular table salt. Because it is coarser, it can change how food feels in your mouth and how quickly it dissolves. The minerals in sea salt also affect its taste. The colors and flavors come from local clays and algae in the water where the salt is made. For example, some salts from Korea and France are pinkish gray, and some from India are black. Black and red salts from Hawaii may include powdered black lava and baked red clay. Some sea salt contains sulfates. It can be hard to tell sea salt apart from other types of salt, like pink Himalayan salt, Maras salt from ancient Inca hot springs, or rock salt.

Black lava salt is a name used for sea salt that has been mixed with activated charcoal, giving it a special look. It is often used as a decorative condiment on the table.

Health

Further information: Health effects of salt

Sea salt and table salt have similar nutritional value because they are mostly sodium chloride. Table salt is processed more to remove minerals and often has additives to stop it from clumping.

Iodine, which is important for our health, is only found in small amounts in sea salt. Iodised salt is regular table salt mixed with a tiny bit of iodine.

Some sea salt from the US, Europe, and China has been found to contain tiny bits of plastic and fungi, which can spoil food.

In Korean cooking, there is a special kind of salt called jugyeom (죽염, 竹鹽). It is made by heating salt in a bamboo container at very high temperatures. This salt is said to add extra benefits to a Korean soybean paste called doenjang, but this hasn’t been proven with strong scientific studies.