Exotic salt better than household salt

Stiftung Warentest: Exotic salts are no better than simple salt

09/27/2013

Salt is not the same salt. Thanks to different extraction and production processes as well as various additives, numerous types of salt are stacked on the supermarket shelves - from simple household salt through Fleur de Sel to the high-priced Himalayan salt. Stiftung Warentest has checked 36 salts for their ingredients and came to the conclusion that gourmet salt is sometimes much more expensive but not necessarily better in quality than simple table salt.

Simple salt usually cuts the mark in the test „Well“ from
The consumer advocates tested a total of 36 products, including eight rock salts and seven fleur de sel. Although the examined salts differed only slightly from each other chemically - all of them consisted of 93 to 99.9 per cent of common salt - the quality differed in some cases strongly from each other. In addition to common salt, the salts consist mainly of sparingly soluble compounds of calcium and magnesium.

Like Stiftung Warentest in her journal „test“ (Issue 10/2013) reported, the consumer advocates in 15 of the 21 investigated simple boiling and sea salts the grade „Well“ forgive. Of the 15 gourmet salts, this was only the case for four products. Some even fell with the note „inadequate“ in the test. In one as „The testers even showed the dye in an absolutely natural "blue salt „Berlin blue“ according to Stiftung Warentest is not suitable for food. The blue or pink color of some salts normally results from changes in the crystal lattice and not from added dyes.

According to the testers, the particularly favorable daily salts of Aldi Süd, Lidl, Penny and Edeka enriched with iodine and fluoride are recommended. For 100 grams, consumers pay 4 cents. The best cut was the iodised salt „Rapunzel sea salt with iodine-containing algae "for 46 cents, without any additives comes from" Byodo Atlantik sea salt "for 20 cents.Extensive gourmet salts are according to Stiftung Warentest especially as a second salt.

Do not consume more than six grams of salt
Salt is an important part of our diet. It not only serves as a flavoring for food, but also acts as a mineral source in our body. Nevertheless, it is important not to take too much salt for health reasons. According to the recommendation of the German Society for Nutrition (DGE), adults and children over the age of 11 should not consume more than six grams of table salt per day. According to information from the NRW Consumer Center, the average salt intake of men in Germany is an average of 9 grams and 6.5 grams a day for women. Even higher are the values ​​of people who would often eat finished products and fast food.

Increased salt intake poses significant risks to health. For example, too much salt promotes high blood pressure, which in the long term can damage important organs such as the heart, brain, kidneys and blood vessels and can subsequently cause life-threatening illnesses such as heart attacks or strokes.

Although the body needs a certain concentration of salt, the amount of liquid in the body must increase as more salt enters the body to rebalance. Due to the higher volume but then a greater pressure on the vessels is exercised. The blood vessels also contract, causing blood pressure to rise as well. Some people are more sensitive to salt than others. Those who know of its sensitivity to salt should, according to the experts, reduce its salt intake. (Ag)