Now that everyone is using sea salt, Himalayan salt, gray salt, fleurs de sel, kosher salt, etc., instead of good, old-fashioned iodized table salt, are we going to suffer from a shortage of iodine?
I was surprised to see that normal Morton’s salt is no longer iodized. When did that happen? Is my thyroid in mortal danger?
Morton’s website says their basic salt is “available in both plain and iodized,” but they only display the plain box. Certainly the box of Morton’s in my cupboard is iodized. But then it’s also eight years old.
I personally take a multi-vitamin which includes 100% of minimum daily requirements for iodine.
This page has a TON of information about the benefits of and need for iodine, symptoms of iodine deficiency.
Iodine deficiency is indeed possible with the kind of food we’re eating these days: The Truth About Sea Salt
This sitebasically says iodized salt won’t give you enough iodine anyway. So get it from diet or supplements.
I’m muddying the water here… this site says don’t take iodine supplements as you’re likely to get too much iodine. The body’s requirement is tiny and “most people” get enough in their diet. I’m confused.
You’d have to have a pretty odd diet to avoid Iodine.
First, no processed food. Salt in major amounts is in a lot of stuff.
So you’re making your own food from scratch. And from ingredients grown in certain regions only. And on and on. You would have to basically make a lot of conscious decisions to completely avoid common sources of Iodine.
I don’t know what it is, but Kosher salt just tastes so much better than the common stuff. And still I’m probably getting a lot more iodized salt than I should.
I doubt it’s a concern before the fallout comes. I make pickles and prefer non-iodized salt for that. Plenty of specialty salts have their uses. But salt is in most of the processed or restaurant foods you consume already, and much of it is iodized.
I see that Morton’s is now selling iodized sea salt on Amazon. I don’t think I’ve seen that in stores though.
How do we know that processed food is iodized? Is iodized salt cheaper? Because I’m pretty sure McDonald’s uses the very cheapest salt on their fries.
Maybe back in the 20s when salt was first iodized, people’s diets weren’t as varied as they are now, so there was a greater chance of iodine deficiency than we face today.
Must be well-preserved. What do you use to keep it good for so long?
There is iodine in eggs, fish, dairy products and many vegetables. Many processed foods are made with non-iodized salt.
I am not convinced that we have been altogether successful in eliminating cases of cretinism.
Hmmm…you could be right…
Salt, by its very nature, inherently preserves itself. Why else do you think that our ancestors used salt to preserve meat?
The iodide added to salt sublimes into the air fairly quickly if not sealed. Eight-year-old salt in the cupboard probably isn’t very iodized anymore.
Also, it’s a rock. Rocks don’t go bad.
Woosh!
You should never use iodized salt except at the table. Heating it often produces a bitter/chemical flavor, and in things like pickling, it can react with the other ingredients to produce off results. Sprinkle it on, don’t cook or bake with it.
Processed food is very unlikely to use iodized salt for those reasons. Cargill produces something like 50 varieties of commercial cooking salt, nearly all of which are pure NaCl but come in different forms that react differently in different large-batch uses (from powdered like confectioner’s sugar, to “snowflakes,” to large coarse grains and everything in between). But I’d bet very little iodized salt is used anywhere in the food industry except perhaps in things like potato chip coatings.
I put a piece of meat in mine. Works great.