Kosher Salt Has Iodine
Kosher salt has iodine. It is only natural to want to know if salt has iodine, and is this so, or not? Well, lets look at the answer.
Iodized salt is now more common, with just about all the other salt used, including sea salt, being iodized. It was very rare for salt to be left unsalted.
Iodized salt is called prepared salt because it does not have iodine; it was not iodized until quite recently. It is a better substitute for ordinary table salt because the acid in iodized salt dissolves more of the iodine in the food than the regular salt does.
Salt does have iodine. The minerals present in it are of two types: sodium and potassium. In some animals, the kidneys are supplied with iodine to balance the production of rennin, the hormone that gives rise to bile, a waste product of digestion. Meat eating animals tend to produce more rennin than vegetarians do.
In humans, the bodies have both sodium and potassium iodide, with the potassium iodine having more and longer half lives than the sodium. Thus the lack of iodine is generally mild and temporary, but in some people, and especially in patients who suffer from autoimmune disorders, the lack of iodine can cause disease. Hypertension is one disease associated with the lack of iodine. Other causes of iodine deficiency include thyroid disease, prostate cancer, hepatitis, and hypothyroidism.
Iodine deficiency is not very common, but it can lead to hypothyroidism, and thyroid cancers are more common in iodine-deficient countries. When iodine supplements are used to correct iodine deficiency, they have to be used with caution because the body may also become deficient.
That said, there is no reason for a person to substitute any kind of salt for kosher salt. Sodium chloride, sea salt, table salt, table flavored salt, or other kinds of salt do not have iodine.
So why have kosher salt been popular for so long? Part of the answer is that salt is so cheap, both in terms of dollars and pounds. Furthermore, salt tends to be less costly in places where kosher or halal meats are available, such as Turkey and the Middle East. Thus, kosher salt has probably become more popular in recent years than it ever had in its past.
Nowadays, iodized salt is the best way to get iodine. There are ways to get it without iodine, but they are very expensive and sometimes not convenient. Iodized salt is the easiest, cheapest, and most convenient way to get the iodine you need. This is one reason why most of the salt in our kitchens and refrigerators is now iodized.
To get good grades, kosher salt should be made from at least 70% potassium iodide, and should contain at least 100 parts per million of iodine. It should also be more expensive, and salt is much more expensive than other foods in the home. Kosher salt will never be cheaper than ordinary table salt.
Kosher salt is an important addition to any kitchen. It is the best way to add iodine to a diet, and it is one of the few sources of iodine, both naturally occurring and added, that is now available at very low cost.
