Anglesey Sea Salt Co. is Soil Association Certified
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 12. 9.05
Thought I might’ve found our first Welsh TH product post, but no, we’ve been there once or twice already. Anyhow, Halen Môn is a traditionally harvested sea salt, that is processed free of additives and contaminants in such a fashion that it has been awarded the coveted Soil Association ‘Certified Product’ Status. The SA is the preeminent organic certifing body in the UK, but as salt is not an agriculture product it can’t strictly be called ‘organic’, so this is the next best thing. Halen Môn retains the “natural trace elements that are present in seawater. Principally, these are magnesium, zinc, calcium, potassium and iodine...” Anglesey Sea Salt Co. suggest that common table salt normally has the additives magnesium carbonate and sodium hexacyanoferrate II, which although help keep the salt dry, mean the trace elements are less readily absorbed by the body. They further observe that many peoples intake of salt is 3 times that of what the body needs. ::Anglesey Sea Salt Company.
Unfortunately, what often gets omitted in mention of trace minerals are the minerals you don't want in your salt, such as natural trace levels of lead, mercury, and arsenic.
Natural lead and arsenic levels are not what concern me since they are miniscule: mercury is present in sea water in no small amount however. The oceans have a natural level of mercury that can potentially become dangerous when concentrated in such forms as sea salt.
Or you could just buy kosher salt for $3 a pound. Kosher salt has no additives and its grain size makes it good for measuring by hand. Kosher salt is mined though.
I actually don't know of any sea salts that have additives. They are very course grained, so clumping isn't really a problem. All sea salts have the same trace elements. They should really be called impurities. If you want a whole lot, I suppose you could go buy some red sea salt.
Funny, for hundreds of years the goal of salt makers was to get rid of the impurities and all of a sudden salt with impurities is now more expensive than more pure salt.
Even that nasty iodized gross salt is technically sea salt, as it is from sea water, rather than mined from ancient salt mines (which used to be sea water, so technically, it's still sea salt). Sea salt doesn't have any additives; it just has less removed from it through purification processes.
If you buy red salt, find out what the red is from some independent lab. If the red is from trace levels of cinnabar, don't eat it. (Cinnabar is mercury sulfide; remember, the oceans contain a high natural level of mercury that gets concentrated in the salt making process.) If it's from something else benign, then it shouldn't be a problem. Much to my dismay, my local natural foods and health products store sells cosmetics that contain cinnabar and quack medicine such as colloidal siver, promoting it as "natural", while unknowingly (or unwilling to face the facts) giving their customers heavy metal poisoning.
pleased to see a uk company, i met this company at the country living fair and was impressed with them and their products , which are competively priced too