If the salt isn’t being ingested, there is no need for iodine.
But absolutely no difference in flavor. They look cool, but taste like any other salt.
Salt sold in the US is required by law to be 97.5% sodium chloride. Most is even purer. A teaspoon of salt is about 4.75 grams. That means there’s about 0.12g of other elements in a teaspoon of salt. Do you really think that tiny amount is detectable by our sense of taste?
And, as I said, all salt is ultimately sea salt. Salt mines are the remnants of a prehistoric sea.
The difference in taste among the various salts is explained not by the trace minerals in it, but by phenomenon that made the emperor realize he had some really great looking clothes.
Oh, and the flavor in salt comes from the chlorine ion, not the sodium. Salt substitutes may taste bad because of the flavor of the potassium, not that the “salt” flavor isn’t there.
As for iodine, if you live near salt water, you don’t need the extra (a certain amount of the iodine gets on everything grown there, and seafood is a good source), but if you live inland you could suffer a deficiency (or, at least, that was a problem years ago, before diet became better.
Huh?
The Iodine is there to prevent Iodine deficiency, and Thyroid problems like goiter.
It’s put into salt because that’s a convenient delivery system, not because salt requires it.
It’s not the potassium, it’s avoiding the sodium. SOME people (but not the majority) are sensitive to large amounts of sodium and it tends to raise their blood pressure. For those people, avoiding sodium can be helpful at keeping their blood pressure low, so potassium chloride can help.
For most of us, there’s no point to potassium at all.
Most people do. Canned soups and vegetables are loaded with it, as are potato chips, nuts, and prepared frozen foods. We don’t eat much of that sort of thing, so I mix my kosher salt with iodized table salt, which seems like a reasonable solution to any concerns.
Personally, I use kosher salt because the larger flakes make it easy to see how much salt I’m adding, and they cling to meat much better when you’re seasoning roasts and the like. There’s no noticeable taste difference, IMO… it’s really just about what’s easier to cook with.
That said, there’s at least one kind of salt that is distinctively different in flavour than any other salt…
Bacon Salt, of course. 
(there are also some fancy-shmancy smoked salts out there, which are quite wonderful as a finishing salt for grilled meats or pates)
No, I have read specifically that increasing potassium while keeping your sodium intake the same will lower blood pressure. I have read this in somethings written by more than one medical professional. I will look for some cites tonight.
While I’ve always suspected there’s not much (if any difference) between salts, I’m not sure I buy this analysis. Coffee is 98% water and our taste buds have no trouble telling us it’s coffee. Even at 4.75 grams of coffee, I’m sure none of us would have problems telling coffee from water.
That said, I’d be curious to try a taste test side-by-side. I’d guess most salts would taste similar or exactly the same, but there might be a few outliers that are different enough to be obvious. I don’t know.
I have a bottle of sea salt that I bought from a dealer in exotic salts from around the world. If you read Mark Kurlanski’s book Salt (and you really should), he describes how salt is made around the world – usually by boiling or sun-evaporating sea water separated into pools. The salt picks up color and trace (or more than trace) elements from the water (seawater has lots of other salts in it besides sodium chloride, chiefly magnesium sulfate), the sand or clay, or from the container (one of those exotic salts I saw had stuff from the wood used to process it).
Even if you mine your salt from deposits you can get plenty of other stuff in it. That’s why the New Testament talks about salt “losing its savor”. Salt is salt – it can;t taste like anything else. But a scoop of stuff from a salt-bearing deposit can effectively klose the part that’s salt, and leave you with a mouthful of sand.
As for the difference, I think it’s mainly one of texture and appearance. I don’t taste anything different about my exotic Sea Salt, but it does add color, and it’s in nice big grains.
I took a cooking class a few years ago in which the instructor placed table salt, kosher salt and sea salt in three different dishes for a taste test. Perhaps it was the perception that there would be a difference in taste, but I noticed a definite difference between iodized salt and non-iodized. Perhaps it was just a more intensive saltiness from the larger flakes, but the kosher and sea salt tasted ‘better’ to me than the iodized.
Iodized salt has a different aftertaste I don’t care for. I can taste the difference, unless it’s on food that covers the aftertaste, which is most food.
Pickling salt is a high purity NaCl salt. There is no anti clumping agent.
To you , maybe.
Do you mean in salt or in general? In general there is, it’s essential to humans and deficiency can lead to hypokalemia.
If you’re putting salt in something and then cooking it, there’s relatively little difference. Use whatever kind of salt your recipe assumes, though, or make sure to do the math on the substitution, because a teaspoon of table salt and a teaspoon of kosher salt are not the same amount of salt.
If you’re sprinkling salt onto something fresh, then some salts can offer slightly different flavors. I like a smoked sea salt on fresh tomatoes with a touch of age balsamic, for example, and it’s not quite the same with just normal kosher salt. (I refer to kosher salt as normal here, because it’s my standard kitchen salt, I don’t routinely use table salt for things.) Amp up the balsamic very much, though, and you’ll bury the smoked taste, and just taste salt.
Basically, the dominant flavor of any salt is, you know, salt. But some of them do have subtle yet discernable differences in flavour. If you’re using them is subtle ways, you’ll taste those flavors.
Depending on what you’re using them for, the color differences can also come into play in your presentation.
Various salts may differ in volume vs. weight — a large, flaky, irregular salt like kosher may weigh less per teaspoon than a small-grained iodized table salt.
Due to the fineness of the grain, salts may be better for certain applications: pickling salt dissolves in cold water, for instance. Kosher salt’s big flakes stick to the side of a steak, helping to draw more moisture to the surface than big, round, bouncy, non-sticky table salt.
Sea salts have flavor components not found in pure NaCl. I have some smoked chile and lime sea salt — most certainly not fresh from the sea, of course, but manufactured to contain flavor elements. I suspect that “sea salt” is a government-mandated label for any salt not 100% pure, rather than an indication of where the salt came from.
Funny that no one is mentioning the salt that is created more equal than every other salt on the planet. At least, if the conversation around here is anything to go by.
Psst! Post #27.
Whoops, just saw Mahna Mahna’s post. My bad.
ETA: Whoops, just saw silenus’s post. My bad.
Except that it’s spelled Kurlansky, I agree with this. Yes, you absolutely, really should read the book.
Also, you should read Mark Kurlansky’s book Salt.
And since it hasn’t really been emphasized yet, I strongly recommend reading Mark Kurlansky’s book Salt.