There is also a variety (which I had also never heard of before googling for this thread) called kala namak, which is flavored and smelly. (And also pink, I’m wondering if that is actually what the OP has.)
It doesn’t surprise me that some people say they prefer a particular variety of salt. There are factors that may influence this (crystal size, color etc.) but it is very hard to believe that the miniscule quantities of impurities in a given salt are going to significantly affect the flavor of a prepared dish.
Cooks Illustrated did a blind (non-peer reviewed :)) taste test of various salts and found that its testers could not distinguish between the salts when in solution (i.e. water or chicken broth) but some liked fancy large crystal salts when sprinkled on a beef tenderloin dish (the “crunch” was deemed enjoyable). Another intrepid experimenter did a test on a number of salts (including one Himalayan variety) in solution and concluded that most testers didn’t have preferences but some liked certain varieties.* The Himalayan salt came in second to an ordinary Kosher table salt which cost a little over a dollar a pound (the Himalayan was around $28 a pound and the less-preferred Le Paludier Fleur de Sel de Guérande clocked in at nearly $70 a pound.
Probably the gourmets who shell out for Le Paludier Fleur de Sel de Guérande would insist it has a much superior taste. :dubious:
*the study’s design defects should be obvious.
If you’re dissolving Fleur de Sel, you’re doing it wrong. It’s distinguished from other salts by the shape and size of its crystals, not by its impurities. When sprinkled on dry, they impart a different texture and eating experience. Whether this difference is a good one, or worth the price, is of course a matter of taste and not disputable, but the difference is certainly there.
There have been equally embarrassing blind taste tests with wine experts.
So I’m not shocked that tiny impurities in salt are not detectable as flavors under controlled conditions. It’s the foodie equivalent of the placebo effect.
I suppose next you’ll say you don’t recognize the incredible clarity and stage presence heard only through audiophile quality $500 HDMI cables. Philistine!!
Cheapskate.
Agreed $500 is as nothing in the surreal realm of the audiophiles.
OTOH, that $21,000 speaker cable carries an analog signal where if you squint real hard you could imagine a plausible physics reason that a difference might be measurable with fancy enough equipment. Albeit not with a human ear.
HDMI cables carry digital domain signals. We don’t even get out of the physics-based gate. Pure salesman-driven reality distortion field there. Pure as in 100.000%. Which may not be much different from 99.99999999999% BS quantitatively speaking, but is qualitatively a whole different arena.
Normally, sweat is isotonic or perhaps a little bit more salty, it should not affect the blood sodium concentration. It influences the precision of salt consumption studies a bit for mostly sedentary people, but it is taken into account.
BTW, athletes have been found to lose a lot of sodium since they perspire a lot. Football players in pre-season training have been measured to lose 2g/hour of sodium, which can easily induce hyponatremia if they would not consume isotonic/hypertonic sport drinks. Hyponatremia is a life-threatening condition, not easily treated.
In normal, older and sedentary people, lowish sodium can increase the rate of heart arrythmias. If atrial, it’s only a bad feeling (and an increased clotting danger). If ventricular, one may just drop dead.
The reason for the concerned tone of this and my previous post is the anti-salt campaign waged lately, also in my country (Israel), together with the anti-sugar one. While some people might consume much too much salt, and even be addicted to it, I’m afraid that indiscriminately lowering salt consupmtion, especially in warm climates is very dangerous.
Yes, aside from the now fairly well known risk for athletes, there have been some unusual instances of hyponatremia. There’s one story from a Grand Canyon boat trip (it’s in either Emerald Mile or Over The Edge) where two older ladies embarked on a trip and found the rapids very frightening, but continued nonetheless, wrapping themselves in waterproof outfits despite the high temperatures. They were following advice to drink plenty of fluids, but presumably sweating profusely and continuously and not following advice to eat salty snacks. They went down in quick succession, and both almost died, in part because the symptoms weren’t figured out immediately.
Huh?
Serum normal is about 140 mmol/L. Sweat (see page 12) has a mean of 33mmol/L with a range of 20-80mmol/L. IOW hypotonic. Rate of sweating also varies greatly. Of course with large volume of sweat loss absolute sodium loss can still be substantial, and if replaced (or over-replaced) with free water alone, especially beyond what thirst mechanisms would guide, serious hyponatremia can result (and has). Normally it doesn’t because normal homeostatic mechanisms usually keep serum sodium in a tight range.
Here’s this from an article that reviews the methods of measuring population salt intake.
The support seems to be this article.
which if indeed all seems a bit thin to be basing a gold standard off of.
As to the accuracy of spot urines correlating with 24 hour collection … the former article is critical, albeit of possible value for complete populations:
I’m not getting where the confidence in the 90% value assumption in 24 hour collections for all subpopulations inclusive of salt-sensitive hypertensives emerges from or why anyone would assume that diurnal variation of renal salt excretion in salt-sensitive hypertensives would necessarily be the same as in normotensives and non-salt-sensitive hypertensives. It seems that trusting spot urines is especially unjustified.
Again, I suspect I am missing something (or somethings) but I still can’t figure out what it is.
You are, of course right. I messed up with the calculator when inputting the data for sweat. The football guys had an average of 50 mmol/L with very little variance.
Also intuitively, it so salty. Right - because sweat evaporates.:smack:
So the body is smart enough to hold onto most of the electrolytes when sweating.
I will look into the other issues.
At least in the paper I based my post on, they use “Kawasaki Formula” - for whatever it’s worth:
Most important of all, Himalayan salt buyers: make sure the product you buy is non-GMO!
Fortunately sellers are aware of this problem and make sure their salt has not been genetically altered.
These folks offer Himalayan salt that is Organic, Natural, Kosher and 'Halall" in addition to being non-GMO. Buy with confidence.
I’m not sure it actually matters whether sweat is more or less salty than blood. It could still have an effect as long as it contains any salt at all.
Consider two subjects, A and B. Both consume the same amount of salt in their diets, both drink enough water to maintain hydration, and both are healthy enough that their bodies naturally maintain equilibrium of salt concentration. A exercises a lot, and so sweats a lot, losing a significant fraction of his dietary salt input. For whatever’s left, his kidneys do their job and take it out, to keep his levels stable. B doesn’t exercise, and so sweats only a little (everyone sweats some), and so his kidneys filter out almost all of the salt he eats.
In other words, for a body in equilibrium, daily salt intake should equal salt output in sweat plus salt output in urine (I’m ignoring other avenues of loss like tears, because I assume they’re insignificant). So someone who loses more in sweat should lose less in urine, given the same input.
doubleminus thank you for including that.
Chronos yes. Deducing intake by way of 24 hour urinary excretion assumes that other sources of losses are constants (or at least insignificantly variable) across the conditions in question, including the condition of those with presumed defects in urinary sodium excretion. Which is probably true but dang for a question of this much health importance it would be nice to actually know it to be true.
You should read Diamond’s entire chapter on salt and modern life. It’s a bit more detailed, here’s a sneak peek:
Presumably to write a book like this, he spent a bit more time that we have researching the effects of salt.
Non-Geologically Modified Ore?
FWIW I do not think the low salt skeptics dispute that high salt diets are associated with an increased rate of hypertension. Or that lowering from a high salt diet is advisable for someone with hypertension who is eating a high salt diet.
The debate is over what level of salt intake is advisable for the general population and how low is advisable. Is the best endpoint to measure the incidence of hypertension or the outcomes that hypertension is supposed to be the surrogate for (cardiovascular disease, strokes, and deaths of all causes)? Is there evidence of sufficient quality to support the recommendation to aim for the current AHA goal of under 2400 mg per day for all?
It of course gets complicated by the fact that the main source of sodium in the American diet is not the salt shaker at the table or even in the kitchen but processed foods intake. With that as the context I must admit to being surprised that a lower salt diet is not minimally a better marker of less risk of adverse health outcomes than there seems to be good evidence for.
But is it gluten-free?
PS Thanks for the chuckle. I needed that.
Also, dry aged. Wet aged salt is noticeably inferior.