What is Kosher Salt and why do you need to stop eating it
'01.05.2018'
Source: Tasting table
Kosher salt is a popular American product. But solmele (as he calls himself), salt specialist Mark Bitterman claims that kosher salt is "poison."
What is wrong with this product? Bitterman’s prejudice about kosher salt sounds very simple: it’s a mass-market chemical that many people confuse with organic salt, says Tasting table, and believe that they benefit from its use.
The editors asked themselves: chefs and food bloggers all over America celebrate kosher salt. Is it really that bad? And is there a more valuable alternative? The main arguments for "solmelier" are that it is chemistry created from chemical components in the course of chemical processes.
“We need chemical sodium chloride, so since the 1800s, the salt-making universe has been picking up steam and focusing on the purest sodium chloride money can buy.”
Kosher salt, such as Diamond crystal, contains 99,83% sodium chloride. In comparison, naturally occurring salts contain about 95-97%, and very rarely more. The main reason why chefs use kosher salt is its price and availability. Bitterman does not blame cooks for using an accessible and familiar product, the taste of which, moreover, does not intrude into the overall taste of the dish.
But the chef Detroit's Apparatus Room and former restaurant chef Sixteen in Chicago with two Michelin stars, and sees the obvious disadvantages of such salt.
According to him, the grains of kosher salt are too large, they do not dissolve quickly - so "you salt and salt the dish until its aroma is completely distorted." And it can simply be unhealthy.
What advises Bitterman, our solmel, as an alternative? Firstly, this is any sea salt from France that has a gray color (sel gris or coarse natural french sea salt). He points to the standards of production and the long successful history of the work of French manufacturers in the American market, in addition, geographical advantage. For cooks, he recommends using handicraft types of salt from well-thought-out sources, even if it costs more.
“If you are what you eat, then your food is who makes it. The farmer creates your vegetables, but at the same time K + S and Mitsubishi and Cargill create your salt, ”the expert emphasizes.
