What Changed?

A lot of customers told us our old logo was hard to read — from a distance it looked a lot like the product was called “BEAL SALT”.  We’re all about REAL and not so interested in BEAL, so we wanted to simplify the logo.  We also removed the “Redmond” from the logo, hoping to keep growing Real Salt as its own brand independent of our parent company, Redmond Inc.

We also updated our pouches and the labels on our shakers.  The packaging is similar enough to be familiar to you, but we made them as transparent as we could to show off Real Salt’s unique appearance, and of course they’re sporting the new logo.

What Stayed the Same?

Real Salt is still harvested from an ancient sea bed here in the U.S.A.  It’s still the same product, with the same unique flavor and health benefits you’ve come to expect from us.  We’re still the same company– which is great because we all really love our jobs.

We know change can be a little unsettling and we love to hear from Real Salt customers, so if you have questions or comments about our new look we hope you’ll drop a note on Facebook or contact us by phone or email.

Sticking with what’s real is a great way to produce salt, and it’s also a great way to market salt.  Our message is a lot like our product — simple, real, and easy to swallow.  We know some people who use salt will never be Real Salt customers, and that’s just fine.  We can only be who we are, so we don’t spend money marketing to people who don’t value the things we value.

It makes sense for us to keep our marketing messages as simple and real as our products are, but some salt companies have a tendency to complicate things with a little marketing trickery. For the most part they’re good companies producing good salt, but their marketing material can be a little misleading.  We’re going to talk about it today, not because we want to point fingers, but because our customers sometimes ask and we like simple answers.

Brine Inflation

If you’ve done research on sea salt you may have seen a bar graph that makes you think certain brands of sea salt have ten to 15 times more trace minerals than others. (The chart has even appeared in a book or two, and it looks a bit like the image below–without the blurriness we added to avoid embarrassing anyone.) At a glance, you might think that brands like Real Salt are woefully lacking trace minerals, but the company who makes the chart is actually employing a little marketing wizardry by combining brine (sea water) and  trace elements into a single number.

Combining water and trace minerals creates a dramatic chart for their marketing materials, but all it really means is that salt from modern oceans is comparatively very wet.  The percentage of water across sea salts can vary quite a bit (Real Salt is 0.6% water, while one modern ocean brand is 14.3%) but if their chart were to compare trace minerals alone instead of combining minerals with water, the differences would be less exciting — and more relevant.  Of the brands we’ve tested, trace mineral content ranges from 1.36% to 2.46%.  (Indeed, the FDA and World Food Standards won’t allow you to call your product “food grade salt” if it isn’t at least 97% sodium chloride, so if someone leads you to believe their salt has more than 3% trace minerals, you can be reasonably sure they’re spinning the truth.)

Counting Minerals

So far we’ve explained how some companies create confusion about the percentage of trace minerals in sea salt. There’s also confusion about the number of minerals in sea salt, but this seems to be a little less deliberate.

All salt, regardless of whether it is harvested from modern or ancient oceans, came from the sea at some point. All sea water has the same complement of minerals in about the same ratio, so unless the minerals have been stripped away during processing (like that nasty table salt), all salts will contain roughly the same 60-65 trace minerals.

When you see a company advertising 80 trace minerals in their salt, there are two possible explanations. It could be marketing spin, or it could be poor communication between the testing laboratory and the marketing department.  (I’m an optimist, so I like to believe most companies simply misread the lab results.)

Here’s how it works. All salt companies hire independent labs to tell us which minerals are in our product, and at what amount. We might contact them and ask them to test for 85 minerals, and the results look something like this. (This snippet comes from a Light Grey Celtic sample.)

There are eight elements listed here, but only six of them were found in the sample. It can be a little confusing, so here’s a primer that explains why some companies wind up claiming 85 trace minerals in their salt.

The excerpt above includes two trace elements, gold and antimony, that are reported with a “less than” prefix. Some companies believe that means their sample contains those elements in tiny amounts, which seems like a sensible conclusion.  But they’re wrong.  When a lab reports <.00001% of gold it doesn’t mean they found a tiny amount of gold, it means the lab equipment can’t detect amounts of gold lower than .00001%. In plain English, a technician looking at the excerpt above would say, “our equipment didn’t detect gold or antimony.” Whenever you see the “less than” sign in lab results, it is the same as saying “not found in this sample.”

It’s a little confusing, perhaps, but whoever said scientific labs were user friendly?  Even companies with the best of intentions get confused–Dr. Mercola’s website frequently claims that his private-labeled Himalayan salt contains 84 trace minerals. I doubt he’d intentionally mislead anyone, so we’re left to curse those pesky “less than” signs and try to educate customers about lab results when we can.

Keeping it real

There are a lot of ways to produce salt, and a lot of ways to market salt. We keep production and marketing simple and straightforward because that’s the way we are, and we think it’s the way our customers are.  We tell you Real Salt has 60 trace minerals because that’s what the independent lab reports. We could make it 85 by including the “less than” minerals, but that wouldn’t be real. It would be spin.  Real Salt is real, and it seems like a good idea to use real numbers to market it, too.

In the 1950′s, the United States government carried out a series of nuclear weapons tests in the Nevada desert.  A generation of residents exposed to the fallout experienced serious health problems, so it makes sense to wonder how the tests may have affected natural resources in the West.  We care about our health (and we put Real Salt on just about everything we eat) so we asked these same questions ourselves.  Here’s what we learned.

When dealing with protection from the effects of radiation, experts talk about three factors: distance, shielding, and time.

Distance

Because of wind and weather patterns, two counties in Utah absorbed high levels of radiation. The Real Salt deposit is more than 125 miles north of either of these counties and about 300 miles from the Nevada testing site. The inverse square law applies to radiation exposure, so doubling the distance decreased the intensity by a factor of four. In other words, if the ground above the Real Salt deposit absorbed radiation, it would have been less than half the amount required for the National Cancer Institute to consider it high.

Shielding

Did we just say the ground above our deposit may have been affected by radiation 60 years ago? Well, yes, nobody can be certain one way or the other, but here’s why that shouldn’t trouble you.

Experts have learned that 3.6 inches of compact earth cuts incoming gamma radiation in half, which means that three feet of earth reduces the possible exposure to 1/64 its original strength. (Most earthen fallout shelters are beneath three feet of dirt.)  Real Salt comes from a mineral deposit 300 feet below the surface of the earth, which means that if radiation found its way to our deposit site it would have met with 300 feet of protection before it could contaminate the minerals.

Time

Scientists have found that gamma radiation decays at a constant rate called the seven-ten rule: For every seven times older the fallout becomes, it retains only 10% of its original strength. This means that 90% of radiation is gone after seven hours, and the remaining 10% is almost completely gone two days later. Since these tests ended fifty years ago, there is clearly no current risk of contamination.

Real Salt and Radiation

The distance between the Nevada test site and our deposit would have limited the strength of any possible fallout, and 300 feet of earth would have weakened any remaining radiation to an immeasurable amount long before it could have reached the salt.  That sounds pretty good in theory, but since we are naturally curious people we still asked a lab to analyze some samples.  The results? They actually did detect a small amount of radiation, which made us furrow our brow a bit until the technician told us that a person would need to eat about eight pounds of straight Real Salt to get the amount of radiation they’d find in a single quart of clean drinking water.  In other words, we may live on a radiation-heavy planet, but Real Salt isn’t the least bit harmful.

If you were to pay a visit to Real Salt’s customer service department, you wouldn’t have to wait long before someone calls with a similar question: Why is Real Salt dirty?  Is there sand in Real Salt? Why doesn’t Real Salt dissolve completely like other salt? The short answer to all these questions is the same: This is what salt really looks like when nature makes salt.

Trace minerals

Just like minimally-processed flour is healthier than “normal” white flour, Real Salt is healthier than other salts because of the things we don’t take out of it. Real Salt is 98% sodium chloride and 2% trace minerals, and it’s these 60+ trace minerals that make Real Salt real. Some of these minerals don’t dissolve in water, but they are bio-available (your body can absorb and use them as nature designed) and are good for your health.

What about other healthy brands?

There are two other brands of sea salt that have trace mineral content similar to Real Salt–Celtic from France, and Himalayan from Pakistan. Some people notice that these brands dissolve more completely in water than Real Salt, and wonder why. (We compared other differences between Real Salt and Celtic or Himalayan a little while ago.) Most of these granules that don’t dissolve are the trace mineral silica, an element that occurs naturally in healthy bones and joints.

Wait, did you say silica?

Yep, silica. If you’re asking, you probably remember learning that silica most often appears in nature as sand–like iron and magnesium, silica is one of those things our bodies use to stay healthy even though it seems a little strange to think of eating it. When people ask if there’s sand in Real Salt we sometimes answer, “Yes! Isn’t that wonderful?”

The health and science community recognized silica as an essential trace element in the early 1970′s, and studies since then have indicated  it can perform two important tasks in our bodies: it can help calcium do its job and prevent osteoporosis, and it can prevent aluminum from contributing to Alzheimers. (Read a long article detailing these and other benefits, which include stronger hair, nails, and skin.) In other words, silica is just another of the beneficial trace minerals that Real Salt users love for their flavor and health benefits.

Healthy, “dirty” salt

My niece never came around to liking our “dirty” flour, and we know that some people won’t appreciate insoluble trace minerals like silica in Real Salt, either. But we believe in the health benefits, and it’s part of what has made Real Salt the best-selling salt in health food stores across the country.  Changing our process to eliminate or reduce insolubles would only mean changing one tenth of one per cent of the product, but we’d be making Real Salt less healthful–and less real–in the process.

A few years later, the United States military noticed something about the young men from America’s Midwest: many of them were unfit for service because of enlarged thyroid glands. A panel established to determine the cause discovered that soil in the Midwest (and therefore much of the region’s population) had become iodine deficient. Without iodine we humans tend to develop goiter, and as any general knows, men with goiter make poor soldiers.

So a group of Very Smart People set about finding ways to supplement our diet with iodine. (We could have started eating more fish, seaweed, cow’s milk, onion, garlic, pineapple, or artichokes, but Very Smart People have always thought that relying on nature is old-fashioned.) Eventually, these Very Smart People discovered that potassium iodide could be added to table salt, and as long as they also added sugar (dextrose) to prevent the iodide from yellowing the salt, the population wouldn’t be able to tell much difference.

Unfortunately, another group of smart people has more recently examined the usefulness of iodized table salt and found it to be less effective than the Very Smart People had hoped. Dr. David Brownstein and others have discovered that the iodine added to salt is at best about 10% bio-available — which means that if you consume 100 micrograms, your body will only be able to use 10 micrograms. Iodine that occurs naturally in food is almost 100% bio-available.

I know, you’re thinking I’m dodging the question. Here’s the answer. Real Salt does contain naturally-occurring iodine, but not enough to satisfy the recommended daily allowance of 150 micrograms. Real Salt doesn’t provide the recommended daily allowance of protein, either. Or fat. Because nature intended salt to provide our bodies with sodium chloride and trace minerals!

So, instead of using chemically-processed, unhealthy salt in order to get iodine, we like to stick with Real Salt and get naturally occurring iodine from other delicious sources like kelp, yogurt, eggs, strawberries, and mozzarella cheese. Yum!

Sources:
• Dr. Brownstein’s books Salt Your Way to Health and Iodine: Why You Need It
• The World’s Healthiest Foods
• Everyone’s favorite source, Wikipedia

No, that doesn’t mean we’re going to be kind to that bitter, chemically treated white table salt you still find in far too many kitchens, because if you understand the health benefits of Real Salt you already know that Real Salt and table salt aren’t even the same product.  But we are going to answer a question we hear a lot when people are considering  their salt options: What’s the difference between Real Salt and Celtic or Himalayan salt?

(Are you wondering why we’re only talking about Celtic and Himalayan? It’s because we are, first and foremost, salt lovers, and if for some reason Real Salt didn’t exist, Celtic and Himalayan are really the only other brands we’d consider using. But we’d still dearly miss Real Salt. Read on.)

First, a Real Salt reminder…

Just so we know we’re all on the same page, Real Salt is an all natural unrefined sea salt harvested from an ancient ocean. It’s full of those natural minerals that make it healthy, delicious, and pink or red looking, and though we do hate to boast we’re also the best-selling brand in America’s health food stores. Yay, Real Salt!

With that in mind, here are the differences between Real Salt and our second-favorite sea salt brands.

Celtic Sea Salt

Celtic Salt is a great salt harvested from the current ocean. They do a terrific job with their salt, harvesting it by hand and leaving it unprocessed so it contains those important trace minerals.  Compared to Real Salt, the biggest difference is that the current ocean is exposed to many environmental challenges (mercury, lead, plastic & petroleum toxins, chemicals, etc.) that ancient seas never experienced. (That’s not to say Celtic users have anything to worry about, but we people do tend to foul up the oceans terribly, sometimes.)

Himalayan Pink

Like Real Salt, the Himalayan brands are harvested from an ancient salt deposit that would have been created long before there were any modern toxins. Geologically, the Himalayan deposit is very similar to Real Salt; they both have the full spectrum of minerals and both can be considered crystal salts. Tasted side by side, Real Salt is a bit sweeter, while Himalayan tends toward an earthy flavor.

The big difference between Real Salt and Himalayan is to do with consequences of geography. Real Salt comes from the USA (Redmond, Utah), and the Himalayan deposits are in and around Khewra, Pakistan. There are 17 different mines supplying the Himalayan brands, and some have more modern standards than others.  Generally, Real Salt is half the cost (we’re so glad we don’t have to ship it from Pakistan!) and we know you can always trust the quality, processes, and labor policies that bring Real Salt to your kitchen.

Did we miss one?

If you think there’s another salt like Celtic and Himalayan that we missed, let us know!

Is salt so bad that we need laws to protect us from its effects? Well, you’re reading this on the website of a salt company, so you can probably guess what we think. But being predictable doesn’t mean we’re on the wrong track, so if you have a few minutes, let’s examine the salt myth in context and see what all the fuss is about.

Salt is essential for life

Let’s take a big step away from the salt debate and look at things from a distance. If you are admitted to any modern hospital in the world, chances are very good that one of the first people you meet will be very interested in finding the biggest vein in your arm so they can stick you with a needle and introduce saline solution (salt water) directly into your body. Since hospital workers are generally in the life-preserving and health-improving business, it’s probably safe to assume that salt, itself, is not something we need to keep out of our bodies.

I know, there’s a difference between eating salt and getting an IV, and you’re still wondering whether you can trust a salt company when we tell you salt is good for you. I guess it’s a good time to break out the sources. A 2006 study published in The American Journal of Medicine tells us that “sodium intake of less than 2300 mg (the daily recommended allowance) was associated with a 37%  increase in cardiovascular disease mortality and a 28% increase of all-cause mortality.” Mortality is a rather polite word for dying, so in other words, people who consume too little salt are more likely to die than other people. Other peer-reviewed journals have released similar results in 2000, 2004, 2006, and even 1960, and several authors and health experts complain loudly when they hear people dismissing salt. (Scroll down to the bottom for links directly to the reports.)

So why does salt have such a bad reputation? Well, to go back to our hypothetical hospital visit, you can be sure your nurse isn’t simply dumping bleached table salt into the drinking fountain water to prepare those IV bags — hospitals and health care professionals understand that all salt isn’t the same.

All salt is not created equal

Did you know that all salt could technically be considered “sea salt”? Some salt is harvested from current oceans, some from dead seas, and some is mined from ancient sea beds, but the sea is (or was) ultimately the source of all salt. Sea water usually contains more than 60 essential trace minerals, but most salt producers today remove these high-profit minerals and sell them to vitamin manufacturers before selling the remaining salt to you and me to dump on our hash browns.

That would be okay, but when you remove the trace minerals that used to accompany sodium chloride, you typically get a bitter flavor that many producers try to mask with chemicals or even sugar. (Go ahead — grab your salt shaker and read the ingredients. See any dextrose? Yep, that’s sugar!)  Even worse, when you consume chemically treated or de-mineralized salt, your body’s mineral balance doesn’t always respond gracefully. When people started consuming chemically altered salts 100 years ago, we started seeing high blood pressure and water retention that had never been associated with salt before. Interestingly enough, our customers tell us these are the same problems that go away when natural salt replaces “table salt” in their diet.

In other words, salt can be bad for your health, but real salt is actually a crucial part of good health! That’s why, more than 50 years ago, we named our brand Real Salt: Your body knows the difference between what is real and what has been chemically altered. Real Salt is salt exactly the way nature made it.  You can taste the difference on your tongue, and you can feel a difference in your health.

References

• Clinical Nutrition Full Article The Dietary Guideline for Sodium Blood Pressure
• American Journal of Med Full Article Sodium Intake and Mortality
• Health Professional Salt Quotes

Take the Real Salt taste test…First taste Real Salt, then try any other salt. The difference will amaze you!