I went to the store to buy table salt. There was Morton salt, and there was the store brand. The store brand was $.10 cheaper. What compelling reason is there for me or anyone else to choose the name brand over the store brand? It’s table salt–NaCl–one can’t be intrinsically better than the other, can it?
And about store brands in general, they have them for everything: mouthwash, shampoo, laundry soap. They say “Compare to brand X” on the label. They seem to use similar recipes as the name brand. Who makes these? Are they really always inferior? Are you paying more just for a name label with the other stuff?
If you’re buying regular old iodized table salt, you would be hard pressed to notice the difference between any brands of salt.
If you’re getting something like kosher salt (which is great for cooking), and you’re a gourmet, you may be able to tell the difference. I know that kosher salt has bigger grains and doesn’t clump up as much when you try to sprinkle it on food.
I would splurge and buy kosher salt anyway. You would be surprised how long the box will last.
I’m a salt freak and I’ve always noticed that the generic brands (Richfood, et al) tend to have less potency than regular Morton salt; however, generally there are some generics, like shampoo and OTC medication that seem to have little difference from brand names. YMMV.
A lot of generics are made at the same factory as the name brands. Things like shampoos and the like are all pretty much the same, so by all means go generic. Unless you enjoy spending more on a nicer label and a fancy bottle.
While sometimes it is just brand-name recognition, there is potential for the product to be of different quality. How much potential difference there is, and whether it’s worth paying for, is a subjective decision.
For example, the majority of salt in the Western US comes from salt evaporation ponds in the SF Bay Area; the ponds are owned by Cargill. Morton (or any other company except Leslie Salt) has to buy their salt from Cargill, and I don’t think they have much control of what happens to it up to that point. However, each company will refine the salt however they feel like from that point. And almost any company selling table salt will make it at least 99%, probably 99.9% pure sodium chloride, possibly iodized or not, and usually mixed with some anti-caking agent.
So is there really a big difference – probably not. Consider that a number of people favor ‘sea salt’, despite the trace levels of chemicals more toxic than NaCl. In fact, websites abound that tell you that you should use sea salt, as it contains ‘organic sodium’ and that refined salt is “an inorganic protoplasmic poison”, a phrase I wish I made up, even it is unfortunately likely to be believed.
Enough about salt already. You probably won’t notice the difference, even with other products. I had a friend who worked at Clorox and told me that their bleach is a bit more concentrated than many generic brands. How much? I don’t know, but if you worked it out on price per mole of hypochlorite, you’d probably still come out ahead with the generic brand. It may just come down to whether you actually like the company or not.
My great-grandmother was once married to a man who owned a large national salt company which competed with Morton’s. This was prior to the Great Depression. This company was large and profitable, but apparently quite leveraged. When the market crashed they couldn’t keep their creditors happy and the company collapsed into bankruptcy. My great-grandmother, who had lived in opulence, was divorced from this former commodity baron and became a chambermaid for some other rich dude. She later married this rich dude, too, (granny was a golddigger! :eek: ) but never regaind quite the money and status she had before.
The moral of this story: If my forebears had handled their finances a bit better, I might be heir to a fortune like the Morton’s have, rather than some poor schlub who posts to the Boards. So I beg you, in futile retribution, buy any salt other than Mortons.
Oooo, Oooo, OOO. A reference to the Morton salt box.
On the box is a picture of a girl carrying a Morton salt box. So, it follows that on the box she is carrying is a picture of a girl carrying a Morton Salt Box. And So on and so on….
Sort of like putting two mirrors together.
Great fun to talk about to my cousin back when I was 17 and quite stoned.
You must keep the Morton Salt Box conundrum alive!
Last March we held the fourth annual “Salt4Life” competition, where we did a double blind taste study of fifty-two different salt products. Heh, no, seriously, though, I’ve found myself reaching for the salt shaker more frequently and going through generic salt much more quickly than Morton. Could there be some form of brand loyal psychology involved? Maybe, but I’m not one who balks at buying less expensive products if there’s no discernable difference.
One of the women I work with used to work at a pie factory. The exact same pies were packaged as “name brand” pies and “generic” pies. Even the plastic tray inside the wrapper sleeve was the same. So she said.
I remember reading in the Tightwad Gazette that the author’s husband once worked for a big-name pickle company. He said that all week long they would jar up the name-brand pickles, then on like Friday afternoon, they’d stop the line, change the jar labels to “Store Brand X Pickles” and fire it up again with the exact same pickles.
So far the only thing can tell the difference with is Cheerios. I’ve never come across a store brand Cheerios that tastes anything like a General Mills Cherrio. (Actually, the store brand Wheat Thins in my area taste different, but actually BETTER than Nabisco Wheat Thins. The Nabisco ones are a bit crispier though, which I suspect is because of something evil.)
If you read the active ingredient list on store brand medications, 99% of the time, they are IDENTICAL in both makeup and potency as the name brand they are copying. The only time it makes sense to buy name brand is if they haven’t come up with a store brand that copies it yet. It’s the exact same stuff. Buying “Pepto Bismol” tablets gets you the exact same medicine as “Pink Bismuth” tablets, only the “Pink Bismuth” tablets cost $2 less.
In addition to what has been mentioned above, the French (always the French) have a speciality sea salt called “Fleur de Mer” (Flower of the Sea), which is scraped from the very top and most fluffy portion of the evaporating ponds. Costs more too.
And then there is Potassium Chloride, on which Uncle Cecil has occasionally written. It is a salt substitute for “dieters” and it tastes absolutely awful. Considered toxic if overused.
I would check http://www.foodtv.com for an explanation, but I know that kosher salt doesn’t have iodine in it. It has bigger crystals than iodized salt.
Sea salt also has bigger crystals, but I don’t enought to give you a good answer about it.
I do know that when you are asked to sprinkle salt on something, it’s a lot easier to do with kosher than iodized. The latter tends to stick to your fingers a bit more. Kosher salt doesn’t and can be spread around more easily.
