The Best Salt for Home Cooking
There are many different kinds of salt used in cooking, including table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, and specialty salts such as fleur de sel. Understanding the differences between these salts can help cooks choose the right one for seasoning, baking, preserving, and finishing dishes. However, on this blog, I’d like to talk about a consideration not much discussed when it comes to salt: the environment.
Take the latest trendy salt: Himalayan pink salt. It comes from Pakistan, notably the Khewra Salt Mine in the Punjab region, near the Himalayan foothills. The salt deposits formed millions of years ago when ancient seas evaporated, leaving behind large underground layers of salt. Its pink, orange, and reddish colors come from small amounts of minerals and iron compounds in the salt. The mine is as much as 8,000 miles from United States markets and must be transported. Salt is heavy. Anyone who has salted their driveway in winter knows that, so there is a hefty carbon-footprint cost getting tens of thousands of tons of Himalayan salt to the United States each year. Pakistani salt must go through American customs, where it is irradiated.
Few American consumers are aware there is a better alternative to Himalayan salt right in their own back yard: the Redmond salt mine on the west slope of the Rocky Mountains in Utah. Ok, you may think this is not auspicious environmentally because of nuclear test drift from Area 51 in Nevada. The Redmond mine is capped with volcanic lava, so it is protected from that. Like Himalayan salt, the Redmond deposit was formed millions of years ago when ancient seas evaporated, leaving behind underground layers of salt. Like Himalayan salt, it has pink, orange, and reddish colors from small amounts of minerals and iron compounds. The mine is 99% powered by solar energy, using solar fields to reduce its carbon footprint. The Redmond mine is only 650 miles from Southern California and 2,400 miles from Bangor, Maine, so it is much less costly to transport to the US consumer. It is the low-carbon-footprint salt of choice–and it is nutritious with trace minerals, too. My blood pressure has always been normal when I use it.
Since learning about Redmond salt, I haven’t used any other. I buy it by the 50-pound bag from Azure Standard, a cooperative with drop-off points all over the United States, so there is little cost to ship it. It’s about 4 cents an ounce bought in bulk. Imported Himalayan pink salt at Walmart costs nearly $1.50 an ounce ($7 for a 5-ounce packet). The choice is clear to me–Redmond coarse salt or nothing else. Below I’ve provided a link for bulk salt at Azure Standard. Please note I am an affiliate, but I earn no commission, just a rebate of $25 to my account, which I turn around and donate to Feeding America.
INSERT Azure Standard link
Water Quality for the Home Cook
We are 75 percent water. Think about that. The importance of water quality cannot be overstated.
At home you use water for drinking, washing produce, preparing soups and sauces, cooking grains and pasta, making beverages, and cleaning kitchen equipment. Because water comes into contact with so much of our food, its quality can affect both food safety and the flavor of meals.
Safe drinking water should be free from harmful microorganisms and unsafe levels of chemical contaminants. In the United States, the Safe Drinking Water Act requires public water systems to meet federal standards for drinking water and to monitor for certain contaminants. The law also requires community water systems to provide customers with an annual Consumer Confidence Report, commonly called a water quality report. These reports explain where the community’s drinking water comes from, summarize testing results, and identify contaminants that were detected during the previous year.
This can get technical. To help you, the Environmental Working Group has dedicated a large section of their website to water quality. EWG’s Tap Water Database covers 50,000 community water systems in all 50 states and includes regulated as well as unregulated contaminants (which water utilities like to exclude from their reporting to the public).
In another section of the website, EWG helps you choose the right filter to remove contaminants from your water. For this reason, it is an invaluable resource.
It all sounds good, a Consumer Confidence Report. Should you be confident? Take one of the unregulated contaminants in my area, as an example. I am based in Lake Saint Louis, across the highway from a GM factory that assembles pickup trucks.
Understanding where household water comes from, how it is treated, and whether it is considered safe can help home cooks make better choices in the kitchen.
