Sugar in our Salt?!?!

So it's finally time for me (Jake/Jacob/The Amazing Husband) to finally post. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm lazy. But come-on now, Jen does such a WONDERFUL job, how can I ever compare? ;-) That's a good cop-out right? Anyways, on with the story....

Jen bought salt the other day for bread making from Safeway. Seems innocent enough right? Well, I guess not. As you can see from the pictured label, the "salt" has 5 ingredients. Since when does salt have 5 ingredients? Man, it seems like every time I turn around, ingredient lists have more and more and more and more items. Well, I had to investigate what the hell those other 4 seemingly unnecessary ingredients are for.


First off, Dextrose? Huh? What's sugar doing in my salt? Well....(1.5 hours of internet research later)... and I as far as I can tell, Dextrose is used to stabilize the potassium iodide. The potassium iodide will evaporate out of the salt over time and that is the added ingredient that is actually helpful to the human body. But I couldn't find any information on how long it takes for potassium iodide to evaporate out of the salt. So is the dextrose truly necessary if you go through your salt in a reasonable amount of time? I don't know.

That leads to another ingredient in salt, potassium iodide. This ingredient is necessary for the human body in very small amounts to avoid goiters. A goiter is an enlarged thyroid gland. If you have a strong stomach, you can look up goiter in Google and see images. The pictures are enough to realize that potassium iodide in salt is perfectly okay with me!

Next up, sodium silicoaluminate. This is an anti-caking agent. Hmmm.... okay. I couldn't find anything incriminating for that one.

And finally, sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda). This is another potassium iodide stabilizer.

So with all that, here are some of my concerns and questions:

1. Dextrose is made from corn most of the time. So the big issue with this for me is GMO (genetically modified organism). I 110% have a problem putting anything into my body that has been genetically modified to tolerate being slathered in Roundup. If you don't know how scary GMO truly is, watch the video "The World According to Monsanto" and if you not scared, you should be!!!!
2. How unstable is potassium iodide? Days, weeks, years? So if you used it in a reasonable time, would we still get the benefit of the potassium iodide without the added stabilizers?
3. How are these additives processed themselves?
4. What is done to salt to get it perfectly white?

I'm sure I'll have more questions later.

So this is what we did. We went to our local awesome organics store Huckleberrys in Spokane and got Real Salt from the bulk foods section. It has a strange pink tint to it. Not only did we save packaging by bringing our own container but we are also getting a much better product that is much less processed. Here's what Real Salt's website says:

Compared to RealSalt brand salt, regular “table salts” and also many sea salts appear stark white because they have undergone harsh bleaching and refining. By contrast, RealSalt is extracted from deep within the earth, crushed, screened, and packaged without any bleaching or refining. RealSalt’s unique “pinkish” appearance and flecks of color come from more than 50 natural trace minerals, including iodine.

RealSalt’s incredible taste is truly unique and something only Mother Nature could create. We bring RealSalt to you in its natural state, without additives or chemicals of any kind.

For Real Salt's website, click here.

So this is what we'll be using for now until something/someone convinces me otherwise.

Peace In!!!