How is sea salt any different from industrial salt? Isn’t it all the same compound? Why would it matter how fancy it is? Would it really taste they same?
In: Chemistry
The salt you’d normally find in use in industries and homes is NaCl, or sodium chloride. This is a neutral salt (neutral salt in terms of acidity or alkalinity) . Of course there are other neutral salts , but they are either not compatible to human body or non usable (salt’s salty taste is regulated by the cation present in the salt’s compound) though some might be used.
Anyways, sea salt contains mixture of acidic , alkaline / basic and neutral salts. Plus it contains mixture of microplastics , pollutants, unwanted chemicals mixed with it. So if you obtain salt by drying the sea water directly, you’d get very crude salt, or mixture of many different salts.
Some salts that are found in the sea water are sodium salts, potassium salts, magnesium salts, calcium salts, and you’d not want to consume them all . (Except sodium chloride )
Some background on salt formation:
Salts are formed when neutralisation reaction occurs , i.e when acid react with base to give salt and water . Since most bases are metal oxides or hydroxides, we can also say that when acid reacts with metal oxides or hydroxides, then they give metallic salt and water.
Also when metals react with acid, they give salt and hydrogen gas.
Ex. Na+ HCl = NaCl +H2 (metal + acid = metallic salt + hydrogen gas)
Ex. NaOH + HCl = NaCl + H2O (metal hydroxide + acid = metallic salt + water)
Thus so on.
Now there are 3 categories of salts, acidic , neutral, basic.
Acidic and basic salts are generally to be consumed in very less quantity or not to be consumed, such as washing soda, which is a basic salt(which cannot be consumed generally) and baking soda is a basic salt which can be consumed in real less quantity.
But neutral salt can be consumed in medium amounts.
You can eat neutral salts like sodium chloride, potassium chloride, calcium chloride, etc.
But they vary in salty range (some may be too salty or sour or not so salty)
But we have selected sodium chloride because it’s perfect for salty taste levels and it is not harmful if consumed in medium /normal salt quantity.
I know this answer is really long for ELI5 and a bit advanced (for 5 yo) but can’t help it 🙁
Chemist here, sea salt may taste different as industrial salt would be refined so it is only sodium chloride, whereas sea salt is literally from the sea so would contain other salts suck as potassium chloride. But it is no better or worse for you that industrial salt, the chemicals are chemicals no matter how or where they are made
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No one has mentioned iodized salt yet and I think it’s interesting so I’m gonna talk about it.
Sea salts don’t contain iodine; it is something specifically added to industrialized salt. The reason for that is because our body needs small amounts of iodine but we don’t always get it from our food. If you don’t get enough iodine, you could get a goiter or other medical conditions. When people realized this, their solution was to put iodine into something that everyone eats a little bit of pretty much every day. Sneaky and smart! But sea salt doesn’t have this because it doesn’t occur naturally. So if you only eat sea salt, you might have to take an iodine supplement sometimes.
The end.
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