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Most of the sodium we eat comes from processed or restaurant foods, not the saltshaker. But you still need some salt for cooking and seasoning at home, especially if you’re an avid cook. Are some salts better for you because they’re higher in healthy minerals or lower in sodium? We have answers to those questions, plus a rundown of claims to take with a few grains of, um…salt.
This article comes from Nutrition Action. We don’t accept any paid advertising or corporate or government donations. Any products we recommend have been vetted by our staff and are not advertisements by the manufacturers. They’re just healthy foods we think you’d like to know about!
1. Is kosher salt lower in sodium?
Is kosher salt lower in sodium? The short answer: yes and no. Like all the salt we use for cooking, kosher salt is made of two elements: sodium and chloride. So, gram for gram, kosher salt has just as much sodium as any other kind of salt. The difference: volume. Kosher salt’s larger coarse crystals mean that, teaspoon for teaspoon, it has less sodium than ordinary finely ground table salt.
And that gives you a bit more wiggle room. If you’re adding salt to taste, each pinch of kosher salt delivers less sodium…making it easier to avoid over-salting your food. So when recipe developers—like our Healthy Cook, Kate Sherwood—call for, say, ¼ tsp. of kosher salt rather than ¼ tsp. of table salt, it’s to save you some sodium.
Sodium savings
How much sodium does kosher salt save? A typical table salt like Morton Salt has 590 milligrams of sodium—that’s a quarter of a day’s max—in ¼ tsp. The company’s Coarse Kosher Salt has only 480 mg. To slash the sodium even more, look for Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt Flakes, whose hollow crystals deliver just 280 mg in ¼ tsp. That’s less than half the sodium of regular table salt.
Recipe tips
Sodium differences explain why some recipes or cookbooks call for a specific type or brand of salt in savory recipes (e.g., “fine sea salt” vs. “Morton kosher salt”) to ensure that you don’t under- or overshoot the saltiness. Our Healthy Cook’s recipes call for “kosher salt,” and we test recipes and calculate nutrition facts for them based on the 480 mg of sodium per ¼ tsp. in a typical product like Morton Coarse Kosher Salt.
Baking recipes, on the other hand, may call for more finely ground salt so that it dissolves completely and blends into batters and doughs.
A note about iodine
Unlike regular “iodized” table salt, kosher salt has no added iodine, which is a key component of thyroid hormones. But if you eat milk, yogurt, and seafood, you’re likely getting enough iodine. And the multivitamins we recommend supply a day’s worth of iodine for adults who aren’t pregnant. Taking a prenatal multi is a good idea for people who are pregnant or breastfeeding because they need more iodine to support the developing brain of a fetus or infant, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Learn more: Do you need a multivitamin?
2. How can I reduce sodium without cutting back on the salty taste?
If you’re cutting back on sodium but miss the zing that salt can add, try replacing some ordinary salt (sodium chloride) with potassium salt (potassium chloride).
The upside of potassium salt: salty taste, no sodium, and a nice dose of potassium, which helps lower blood pressure. A potassium chloride salt like Morton Sodium Free Salt Substitute has 690 milligrams of potassium per ¼ tsp. That’s more than the 420 mg you’d get in a medium banana.
The downside: the bitter aftertaste from pure potassium chloride salt subs that some people detect. So do what manufacturers of lower-sodium foods do: Use potassium salt to help reduce sodium, not eliminate it. A part-sodium salt, part-potassium salt blend like Morton Lite Salt does that for you. Each ¼ tsp. has 290 mg of sodium—about half what regular table salt has—plus 350 mg of potassium.
Caution: Some diseases (like chronic kidney disease or heart failure) and some medications (like ACE inhibitors, angiotensin II receptor blockers, and potassium-sparing diuretics) make it hard to excrete potassium, which raises the risk of dangerously high potassium levels in the blood. If you’re not sure whether you’re at increased risk, check with your healthcare provider before switching.
Learn more: Potassium salt can cut the sodium and improve health
3. Are salts like “Real Salt” or pink Himalayan salt healthier than regular salt?
Less refined salts like pink Himalayan or “Real Salt” are better for you because they contain more minerals, say some health gurus and companies. Really?
Minerals in pink Himalayan salt
Pink Himalayan salts typically contain “upward of 80 trace minerals” and are “a great source of micronutrients,” claims the website draxe.com. (Micronutrients are minerals or vitamins.)
Those traces of minerals help give Himalayan salt its pink color. But how much of them can you expect in a sprinkle of salt? Not much.
Take Terrasoul Superfoods’ Himalayan Pink Salt, which contains “essential trace minerals,” according to its website. The company sent us a lab analysis of its salt.
It showed that a ¼ tsp. serving easily supplies “good source” levels of sodium and chloride. (That means at least 10% of the Daily Value.) No surprise there, since Pink Himalayan salt is composed of—drumroll—sodium chloride.
But you’d have to eat anywhere from 7 to 107 teaspoons of the salt to get 10 percent of a day’s worth of “essential trace minerals” like calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, copper, zinc, or selenium. Gulp!
Bottom line: Don’t expect to get a good dose of beneficial minerals from salt…unless you’re talking about potassium from potassium salt.
A look at “Real Salt” sea salt
Is Redmond “Real Salt”—an “unrefined” sea salt mined from an ancient seabed in Utah—any better than Himalayan salt?
“Many salts contain anti-caking agents and even dextrose (sugar),” says the company’s website, but Real Salt “is unrefined and full of natural minerals.”
Redmond has posted the lab analysis results for its salt’s “60+ trace minerals” on its website. Like pink Himalayan salt, the numbers are unimpressive. For example, you’d need 1½ cups of Real Salt to supply the potassium in a medium banana.
How much—or how little—of the other “60+ trace minerals” do you get? Here’s a clue: Gold and silver are on the list. (They’re “found occasionally” in the company’s testing, at levels below 0.0002%.)
As for that “dextrose (sugar)” Redmond says you get in not-so-Real salt, don’t worry. You’d have to eat roughly 8½ cups of Morton Iodized Salt to get a mere 1 gram (¼ tsp.) of sugar. Many brands add trivial levels of dextrose to their iodized salt to stabilize the added iodine. And the commonly used anti-caking agent calcium silicate is safe to eat.
