Recently, netizens spent 169 yuan to buy a 425-gram bottle of American Hawaiian black salt online, which is incredible. The price of a 400-gram bag of edible refined salt is only about 3 yuan. That black salt is more than 50 times more expensive than the table salt of about 3 yuan. It is also salt, so why is there so much difference?
Seeing that I was skeptical, netizens began to “popularize” me: “Hawaiian volcanic red salt mixed with red volcanic mud is rich in minerals, with a crisp texture and mild taste.” “French gray salt comes from the Celtic Sea in France. , with high water content, moist and brittle, and rich in minerals.” He was talking nonstop over there, I heard the fog in the clouds at first, and felt that there was some truth to it, so I kind of believed that these were full of exotic flavors. Table salt may have unique nutrients.
But after careful scrutiny, “Internet celebrity salt” generally focuses on “natural, origin, rich in minerals”, which is purely conceptual speculation. Edible salt mainly includes sea salt, lake salt, well salt, mineral salt, etc., which come from seawater, natural brine, and underground salt deposits. It can be said that all table salt is “natural”. The main ingredient of edible salt is sodium chloride. As long as the purity meets the standard, the nutritional composition and value of salt from different origins are similar.
The more minerals in “net celebrity salt” are not the better, if the sodium, phosphorus and other elements accumulate too much in the human body, it will cause harm. Furthermore, eating salt to supplement nutrients goes against the direction of the low-salt diet advocated by relevant departments. In 2012, when the former Ministry of Health revised the “Standards for the Use of Food Nutrition Fortifiers”, the functional expression of salt as a food nutrition fortification carrier was specifically deleted, and the addition of nutritional fortifiers other than iodine was no longer allowed. Studies have also shown that high salt intake is closely related to hypertension, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and controlling salt intake is one of the important measures to prevent chronic diseases such as hypertension recommended by the World Health Organization and governments around the world.
The statement “eating salt to supplement calcium” is even more unscientific and self-contradictory. Table salt contains sodium ions, and the metabolism of sodium and calcium in the human body is linked, and they are regulated by the same molecule. When the sodium intake is too high, the body will work hard to excrete sodium, and at the same time, it will increase the excretion of calcium in the urine.
“Internet celebrity salt” misleads consumers, not only makes consumers spend more money, but also may damage their health and affect the national health level. The author here reminds everyone not to be fooled by “net celebrity salt”.
(Editor in charge: Deng Hao)