I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of various kinds of salts while learning about lacto fermentation and have come across Baja Gold Sea Salt, which is seemingly considered one of the premium salts for such projects. Their claim is that their salt is only 75 to 80% NaCl, compared to things like Himalayan pink salt, Redmond’s salt, and table salt, all at over 95 plus percent NaCl, especially table salt.
They have a page of analyses they have done on their product, showing the amounts of the various elements.
Most of those results show a few elements, the major ones being sodium, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and sulfur. There is one particular one that they posted which also includes chloride (which for some reason they usually leave out), and a whole bunch of other elements. That’s the one I have questions about. Here is that particular result.
Adding it all up, I get a number just under 82%, with the major contributors obviously being chloride and sodium and other significant elements being potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur. That still leaves that last 18%. Based on the descriptions of how they make their product, my guess is that the other 18% is water. Is that a reasonable guess, or is there something else that I’m missing / have I done the math wrong?
I get a number just over 82%. And I agree that the units of measure appear to be parts per million (ppm) by mass, so I agree with your method of simply adding up the results, dividing by a million, and converting to a percentage.
The remaining 18% could well be water, likely in the form of inorganic salt hydrates, so you could have water present that is chemically bound to various compounds and not in liquid form.
I’ve used sodium tartrate dihydrate for its 15.6% water content as a calibration reference. As I understand it, the water is unlocked (?) from the molecule above 150 C.
Speaking of numbers - ones I don’t see for this product are % of recommended daily allowance (RDA) for any of the fabulous trace minerals they claim that their salt contains. It’s a good bet that the amounts cited are insignificant from a health standpoint.
Also not provided - a list of trace contaminants tested for by an independent non-contracted lab, like those discovered in similarly ballyhooed Himalayan pink salt, found to contain toxic and even radioactive substances.
Bottom line: highly dubious health benefits from an expensive salt no better or worse for you than ordinary table salt.
Now that we’re aways in, and the thread is clearly slowing down …
I was going to say the missing component of this product is “common sense”. Or maybe the missing component of the product is “need” and the missing component of the customers is “common sense”. Sorta amounts to the same thing.
I’ve done a lot of lactofermenting and have read a lot of stuff on it, and the type of salt almost never comes up. Why would sodium levels make a difference?
If I were to use it and the stuff is an 80/20 mixture of salt and water rather than 100% salt (whether NaCl, KCl, MgCl2, CaCl2, or some other salt probably doesn’t make that big a difference as far as I can tell), then my brining solution would only be 80% of the expected strength. That would be my main concern.
I think if the missing component is just water that is a best case. My main concern would be that it is instead something they simply didn’t test for—like bromine (in the form of bromide) or even arsenic (both of which are naturally occurring elements).
I mean, why are they testing for rare Earth elements like Europium and not testing for more common elements like bromine and arsenic? Bromide seems like a particularly curious omission when they tested for fluoride, chloride, and iodide (all of the related halogens), not to mention the fact that bromide is typically found in brine pools and salt deposits.
Anyway, even at relatively low concentrations these two elements (bromine and arsenic) can build up in the body (chronic toxicity) and cause serious health effects.
Good point about the bromine. As for arsenic, they do have other reports linked where they tested specifically for arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury, with all four turning up as none detected for a sensitivity at 0.1 PPM for arsenic. The others were also none detected.
I’m not sure how I overlooked it, but it could also be that carbonates make up a major component of the remaining percentage that wasn’t listed.
Good point—carbonates could certainly be present as well. Note that the analysis did actually test for carbon, though not for the oxygen component (which makes up 80% of carbonate ion by mass).
The same is true for any phosphates that might be present.
Much superior in cost, i.e. way more expensive than usual table salt. No difference in health effects. Virtually certain to taste the same as regular salt (don’t expect double-blind taste tests). Unknown levels of certain contaminants, probably in quantities too small to be significant unless you consume lots of it.
