Unrefined vs. Refined Salt: Which is a better choice?

Salts play a very important role in our daily lives. It provides flavor to food. Any dish without salt will taste blunt. Salt is also a food preservative. Too much salt in the diet can lead to high blood pressure, heart problems, and stroke.

Salt also known as sodium chloride has 40% sodium and 60% chloride. There are 2 types of salts

1.       Refined

2.       Unrefined

Unrefined salt is natural and unprocessed salt extracted from natural sources. It contains original trace minerals and does not feature any additives or preservatives. There are 3 types of unrefined salts

1.       Himalayan salts

2.       Real salts

3.       Sea salts

Himalayan and real salts come from deep shafts on the earth's surface. Sea salts involve evaporating sea water to extract salt.

Refined salts involve a chemical refining process that removes the nutrients and the impurities present in unrefined salt. The process involves salt feeding, salt washing, dosing of additives, coating, salt drying, adding anticaking agents, and conditioning agents. This is done to increase the shelf life of the salt.

WHICH SALT IS BETTER?

Refined salt goes through a lot of processing. A lot of chemicals are added while processing. Many minerals are removed from the salt, also impurities like microplastics are removed. To the refined salt, iodine is added to make it an iodized salt. This iodized salt is used to reduce iodine deficiency problems like thyroid. In India, an average person takes 8 grams of salts per day which contains 300 mcg of iodine. This is more than the required amount prescribed (150 mcg). Even after increased consumption of iodine, still a lot of people suffer from thyroid problems in the society. Iodine can also be found in other foods like vegetables, fruits, pulses, and dairy products. Iodized salt may not be the only way to consume iodine. While refined salt isn’t the worst choice, unrefined salt has more to offer. Unrefined salt offers more minerals that are removed out of refined salts. Taste wise they are more flavorful.