Salt - Now With 33% Less Salt



  • I just went food shopping and caught this little gem.

    Diamond Crystal salt (plain NaCl table salt), now with 33% less Sodium (no, there is no K-salt, or any other salt in it). In other words, you'd be paying for 1/3 crystal filler.

    The really scary part is that there will be people who are trying to reduce sodium intake and buy this stuff thinking that they're doing the right thing, as opposed to just shaking a little less on their food.



  • @snoofle said:

    Diamond Crystal salt (plain NaCl table salt), now with 33% less Sodium (no, there is no K-salt, or any other salt in it). In other words, you'd be paying for 1/3 crystal filler.
    Or they reduced the serving size by a third.



  • @bstorer said:

    Or they reduced the serving size by a third.

    Good thought, but I checked, and sadly, they hadn't.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @snoofle said:

    In other words, you'd be paying for 1/3 crystal filler.
    Stop complaining.  It's good for your gizzard.



  • They say in their page (http://www.diamondcrystalsalt.com/Culinary/Products/Salt-Sense.aspx) that this stuff is "less dense". It's just finer salt. Still, the way they advertise feels very wrong.



  • At the Diamond website, there are helpful tips on "how salt can help you." These include boiling water since "Salt added to water makes the water boil at a higher temperature, thus reducing cooking time."

    That's a science WTF. To raise the boiling point of 1 liter of water by 1 °C, you would need to add ~57 grams of salt. For example, according to Wikipedia, seawater (~35 g of NaCl per liter) boils at only 100.6 °C.



  • [quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Still, the way they advertise feels very wrong.[/quote]

    I disagee completely.  I think businesses should be able to make any claim they want about their product.  It results in stupid people transferring their wealth to smart people and (hopefully) dying as a result of their ill-conceived purchase.  Think if rat poison advertised that it made your penis bigger.  Or if Ford could tell people that their cars won't end up as flaming piles of wreckage on the side of the freeway with the drivers trapped inside.  It's speeding up Darwinian evolution and God knows it's far more effective than spending more money on education.  It's also a lot easier than my current plan of feeding stupid people rat poison one-by-one.



  • @DKNewsham said:

    At the Diamond website, there are helpful tips on "how salt can help you." These include boiling water since "Salt added to water makes the water boil at a higher temperature, thus reducing cooking time."
    That's a science WTF. To raise the boiling point of 1 liter of water by 1 °C, you would need to add ~57 grams of salt. For example, according to Wikipedia, seawater (~35 g of NaCl per liter) boils at only 100.6 °C.

    This is a very common misconception, however.  I'm surprised you haven't heard it before.  And technically they are correct, it just doesn't raise the boiling point significantly. 



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    This is a very common misconception, however. I'm surprised you haven't heard it before. And technically they are correct, it just doesn't raise the boiling point significantly.

    This misconception is usually covered along with molal boiling point elevation and freezing point depression in high school chemistry. That's why I was so surprised to see people who should be salt experts spreading it even if it is technically correct. However, it seems that they're pretty desperate to find uses for salt. Looking at their other "Life Enhancing Tips", reveals gems like this:

    • Dip a sponge into salt water and rub it on windows. They won't frost up even when the mercury dips below 32 degrees. (Be sure any metal parts are sealed with a quality sealant or are painted.)
    • To improve the flavor of poultry, rub the fowl inside and out with salt before roasting.
    • Adding a pinch of salt to milk will keep it fresh longer.
    • A pinch of salt in coffee will enhance the flavor and remove the bitterness of over-cooked coffee.


  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Or if Ford could tell people that their cars won't end up as flaming piles of wreckage on the side of the freeway with the drivers trapped inside.

    Like the Ford Pinto? To be fair, that was Ford's FUBAR, it isn't like the average guy would know the car was a rolling time-bomb. Or the tire-ripping Ford Explorer.

    Oh wait, I get it. It's weeding out the people that believe Ford makes safe vehicles!



  • @DKNewsham said:

    This misconception is usually covered along with molal boiling point elevation and freezing point depression in high school chemistry.

    Show of hands for people who didn't sleep through HS chemistry.  I sure as hell did.

     

    @DKNewsham said:

    - To improve the flavor of poultry, rub the fowl inside and out with salt before roasting.

    This is true.

     

    @DKNewsham said:

    - A pinch of salt in coffee will enhance the flavor and remove the bitterness of over-cooked coffee.

    As is this.  In fact, salted coffee is really popular in some Scandanavian country.  I don't remember which one, though.



  • All I remember from high school chemistry is that we spent over 2 weeks learning that 1 mol = 6.02 * 10^23. Not exaggerating. 



  • @Bumble Bee Tuna said:

    All I remember from high school chemistry is that we spent over 2 weeks learning that 1 mol = 6.02 * 10^23. Not exaggerating. 

    Unless you were forced to celebrate Mole Day, you can't even begin to compare to the insane high school chemistry classes I experienced.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @DKNewsham said:
    - To improve the flavor of poultry, rub the fowl inside and out with salt before roasting.
    This is true.
    Sounds to me like "Throw salt in everything.  You know it will make it taste better!"



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Show of hands for people who didn't sleep through HS chemistry. I sure as hell did.

    Hand I'm sorry that your high school chemistry teacher was such a bore. I assure you that chemistry is actually pretty awesome. Unfortunately, it's difficult for school districts to attract good chemists when they can earn dramatically more in industry.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    In fact, salted coffee is really popular in some Scandanavian country.

    I had never heard of salted coffee before, but if the people that brought us lutefisk and surstromming think it's good, I'll have to give it a shot.



  • I've seen containers of salt that list dextrose in the ingredients.  Sugar in salt?  WTF?

     



  • @DKNewsham said:

    *Hand* I'm sorry that your high school chemistry teacher was such a bore. I assure you that chemistry is actually pretty awesome. Unfortunately, it's difficult for school districts to attract good chemists when they can earn dramatically more in industry.

    Eh, it wasn't that the teacher was a bore, it was that I already knew most of the material and that chemistry bores me.  It's neat in theory, but I've always been more of a physics guy and the endless chemical formulas and ionic variations put me to sleep.  My teacher was actually a former Vietnam vet who was utterly mad.  I really think he was trying to kill us sometimes.  Once he had the whole class crowd around a large beaker full of water so we could watch an experiment.  Then he threw a pellet of sodium into the water and leapt behind his desk while the damn thing flamed up.  The students started a stampede out of the classroom.  On another occassion right before Christmas break we had a quiz and he put on a Santa hat and went around the room asking each student if they had been good this year and if they wanted a present.  If so, he would mark one question of your choice on the quiz as not counting.

     

    One time he decided he didn't like how I wrote the letter 'K' on a quiz when writing the symbol for potassium so he stood over my desk for 30 minutes, telling me the proper way to write a 'K' and making me rewrite my Ks over and over until he was satisfied with them.  The whole time everyone in the class was sitting silently and watching us and I kept praying that God would bless me with a stroke or heart attack or anything to make it end.

     

    The teacher was also quite a fan of Mole Day and made us celebrate.  He baked a mole cake (like a pound cake, but with the 1 mole of each ingredient) and told us mole jokes and mole stories.  Then he had us go mole caroling through the halls, singing songs about moles he had made up.  The thing is, he wasn't just being goofy, he took this Mole Day very seriously.  Some kids kept laughing at how absurd it was and he completely lost his shit on them, telling them they need to respect Mole Day and Avagadro if they ever want to accomplish anything in life.  He also did LSD with some of the stoner kids he was fond of.  He would mix up this powder that fucked up drug-sniffing dogs' noses and would hand it out for students to spread in the hallways so nobody got busted for possession.  That's just a fraction of the stories I have and he wasn't even the most fucked up teacher in the school.  I haven't even touched on the P.E. teacher who led is in prayer the day after September 11, asking God to put Nintendo and McDonald's out of business so America's kids could go outdoors and get fit for the impending war against Osama bin Laden.  He was a profound alcoholic, had a smoker's rough voice and delusions of being a drill sargeant.  By the end of the prayer he was crying and telling God that the tools for obtaining justice were in that very gym, if God would but use them.



  •  @bstorer said:

    @Bumble Bee Tuna said:

    All I remember from high school chemistry is that we spent over 2 weeks learning that 1 mol = 6.02 * 10^23. Not exaggerating. 

    Unless you were forced to celebrate Mole Day, you can't even begin to compare to the insane high school chemistry classes I experienced.

    Ugh, thanks for reminding me of the Mole Day Song we had to listen to.

    A mole is a number,
    oh haven't you heard?
    It's six times ten to the...
    twenty-third!



  •  OK, I haven't found the Mole Day song yet, but I did come across the Mendeleev song that we had to listen to (which I think is by the same dude).

    http://www.westcler.org/gh/farrellchris/SciSongs/Artist%20-%20Mendeleev.mp3



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    [quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Still, the way they advertise feels very wrong.

    I disagee completely.  I think businesses should be able to make any claim they want about their product.  It results in stupid people transferring their wealth to smart people and (hopefully) dying as a result of their ill-conceived purchase.  Think if rat poison advertised that it made your penis bigger.  Or if Ford could tell people that their cars won't end up as flaming piles of wreckage on the side of the freeway with the drivers trapped inside.  It's speeding up Darwinian evolution and God knows it's far more effective than spending more money on education.  It's also a lot easier than my current plan of feeding stupid people rat poison one-by-one.

    [/quote]

    Agreed. I hadn't thought like that at first. Reminds of the the Darwin Awards.



  • [quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]http://www.diamondcrystalsalt.com/Culinary/Products/Salt-Sense.aspx[/quote] 

    "These crystals dissolve faster to give you real salt taste, without leaving any metallic aftertaste."

     And yet you can clearly see on the package that the salt is iodized. Anyone want to take bets on which part is lying?

    (Okay, only the one with the yellow top is iodized. But you get the point.)



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    [quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Still, the way they advertise feels very wrong.

    I disagee completely.  I think businesses should be able to make any claim they want about their product.  It results in stupid people transferring their wealth to smart people and (hopefully) dying as a result of their ill-conceived purchase.  Think if rat poison advertised that it made your penis bigger.  Or if Ford could tell people that their cars won't end up as flaming piles of wreckage on the side of the freeway with the drivers trapped inside.  It's speeding up Darwinian evolution and God knows it's far more effective than spending more money on education.  It's also a lot easier than my current plan of feeding stupid people rat poison one-by-one.

    [/quote]

    Obviously you're trolling in the hopes of provoking an answer you can mock, but as an intellectual exercise, there are (at least) two flaws with that plan:

    1. Sociopaths would get rich even faster, thus increasing the likelihood that one of them will burn down your house, fill your pool with toxic waste, or kill you, and be able to afford sufficient legal council to get away with it on a technicality. Now, I'm in favor of them being able to get away with doing that to you personally, but I draw the line at letting them get at me or anyone I actually respect.
    2. If packaging is allowed to say anything, then it becomes impossible, or at least prohibitively time-consuming, to correctly perform any task which requires the purchase of materials, even for non-stupid people. For example, trying to build a good new PC would become practically impossible if CPU manufacturers were allowed to lie about speeds, card manufacturers were allowed to lie about bus compatibility, and RAM manufacturers were allowed to ship any chip of any type and size in any box. You'd spend as much time returning defective or incompatible parts as you would using the resulting computer, and you would probably end up with a 16 MHz 386 and 32 MB of RAM. Once again, that's fine as long as it happens to you, but I have more important things to do than play games with retailers.


  •  What I hate is when I see "sea salt" is listed as an ingredient when they are trying to market to those who are in the 'trendy, at least somewhat educated, healty food' demographic... it really doesn't take much more a very simple understand of chemistry at the high school level to understand that NaCl couldn't be any different no matter where it came from.



  • @Vechni said:

     What I hate is when I see "sea salt" is listed as an ingredient when they are trying to market to those who are in the 'trendy, at least somewhat educated, healty food' demographic... it really doesn't take much more a very simple understand of chemistry at the high school level to understand that NaCl couldn't be any different no matter where it came from.

    But it comes from the sea. Name one thing that comes from the sea that's bad for you! Other than a hungry shark... or Portuguese Man o' War... or Cthulu. But other than that, it's all good!


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Vechni said:

     What I hate is when I see "sea salt" is listed as an ingredient when they are trying to market to those who are in the 'trendy, at least somewhat educated, healty food' demographic... it really doesn't take much more a very simple understand of chemistry at the high school level to understand that NaCl couldn't be any different no matter where it came from.
    No, of course it's not the chemical composition in the salt that's different.  I suppose you can't tell the difference between distilled and mineral water, either.  Also, the crystals in sea salt are typically bigger than regular table salt (similar to kosher salt), making it suitable for different purposes.  I don't usually use sea salt (though I use a lot of kosher salt).  Clearly, sea salt isn't marketed at those whose cooking knowledge ends at Ramen and Mac'n'Cheese.

    Of course, TRWTF is trying to make a sensible comment here...



  • @The Vicar said:

    Sociopaths would get rich even faster...

    That was kind of the point.  I am not getting rich as fast as I would like.

     

    @The Vicar said:

    If packaging is allowed to say anything, then it becomes impossible, or at least prohibitively time-consuming, to correctly perform any task which requires the purchase of materials, even for non-stupid people. For example, trying to build a good new PC would become practically impossible if CPU manufacturers were allowed to lie about speeds, card manufacturers were allowed to lie about bus compatibility, and RAM manufacturers were allowed to ship any chip of any type and size in any box. You'd spend as much time returning defective or incompatible parts as you would using the resulting computer, and you would probably end up with a 16 MHz 386 and 32 MB of RAM. Once again, that's fine as long as it happens to you, but I have more important things to do than play games with retailers.

    This is completely moronic.  For the most part, packaging is more correct when businesses can put whatever they want on it, because if they are dishonest people will avoid buying from them and they will go out of business.  You get far more trouble when the government establishes certain requirements because it suddenly gives the air of legitimacy to anything.  In other words, people think "well, this must be true because it wouldn't be allowed to be false" and neglect critical thinking.  Of course, there will always be people who try to bend the rules.  The problem with a government-backed system is that ultimately the whole thing ends up weighted down in court cases and bureacracy trying to determine if the bending is acceptable under the law, when all the while the product is being sold with implicit government approval.  Without that approval, consumers would engage their brains more and scammers would quickly find themselves out of business as their reputation is destroyed.



  • @Vechni said:

    What I hate is when I see "sea salt" is listed as an ingredient when they are trying to market to those who are in the 'trendy, at least somewhat educated, healty food' demographic... it really doesn't take much more a very simple understand of chemistry at the high school level to understand that NaCl couldn't be any different no matter where it came from.

    Sea salt is considered more environmentally friendly because it is not mined.  Hence why it is trendy. 



  • <sarcasm level="really quite high">

    I think we all need to go visit the Salt Institute web site (http://www.saltinstitute.org/), which promises not only to be educational, but also a source of excellent web site authoring ideas.

    </sarcasm>



  • @vt_mruhlin said:

    Ugh, thanks for reminding me of the Mole Day Song we had to listen to.

    A mole is a number,
    oh haven't you heard?
    It's six times ten to the...
    twenty-third!

    Ugh, that's just wrong. A mole is NOT a number. A mole is 6.02 * 10^23 atoms or molecules. The number is Avogadro's number.



  • @Vechni said:

     What I hate is when I see "sea salt" is listed as an ingredient when they are trying to market to those who are in the 'trendy, at least somewhat educated, healty food' demographic... it really doesn't take much more a very simple understand of chemistry at the high school level to understand that NaCl couldn't be any different no matter where it came from.

    Sea salt isn't pure NaCl, though. There are a lot of other salts dissolved in the water as well, so salt from different sources could have different tastes depending on the amount of Pottasium or Calcium or Sulfates in the salt.



  • @SuperousOxide said:

    @Vechni said:

     What I hate is when I see "sea salt" is listed as an ingredient when they are trying to market to those who are in the 'trendy, at least somewhat educated, healty food' demographic... it really doesn't take much more a very simple understand of chemistry at the high school level to understand that NaCl couldn't be any different no matter where it came from.

    Sea salt isn't pure NaCl, though. There are a lot of other salts dissolved in the water as well, so salt from different sources could have different tastes depending on the amount of Pottasium or Calcium or Sulfates in the salt.

     

     

    Yes, that does makes senses now that you explain it, even those are in very minute quantities but sure.

    However I wouldn't know how that is going to effect my body, which is why I don't care why they list that. Take into consideration that natural flavoring and artificial flavoring (when listed as an ingredient) are almost the same (chemicals used to substitute a taste/indigestable), the only factor which differentiates the two is if their origins are either "natural" (ie: even dog food left overs from processing would be "natural") or of an industrial origin. It really doesn't matter, yet by the wording one would think it surely does. So I supposse the idea of coming from the ocean instead of a mine makes marketing sense for those selling health foods though, but it makes none to me how that is any different for my health.



  •  @AssimilatedByBorg said:

    <sarcasm level="really quite high">

    I think we all need to go visit the Salt Institute web site (http://www.saltinstitute.org/), which promises not only to be educational, but also a source of excellent web site authoring ideas.

    </sarcasm>

    field trip!



  • @Vechni said:

     What I hate is when I see "sea salt" is listed as an ingredient when they are trying to market to those who are in the 'trendy, at least somewhat educated, healty food' demographic... it really doesn't take much more a very simple understand of chemistry at the high school level to understand that NaCl couldn't be any different no matter where it came from.

     

    I'm one of those people who always buy sea salt. Not because of any of the reasons listed however. the grain of seasalt (or at least the brand i buy) is just a bit bigger, which i like. I haven't noticed a difference in taste to normal salt though, nor do i care if it is actually from the sea.



  • @stratos said:

    I'm one of those people who always buy sea salt. Not because of any of the reasons listed however. the grain of seasalt (or at least the brand i buy) is just a bit bigger, which i like.


    I have a baglet of sea salt grains that I eat like tiny candy -- only a single one, though.


    For normal salting purposes I have ye common red Jozo container.



  • @bstorer said:

    @snoofle said:
    Diamond Crystal salt (plain NaCl table salt), now with 33% less Sodium (no, there is no K-salt, or any other salt in it). In other words, you'd be paying for 1/3 crystal filler.
    Or they reduced the serving size by a third.
     

    Weight Watchers margarine is (was?) like that: it specified a 3.5g serving instead of the usual 5g serving. And the advertising was "30% less fat per serving". Well der!

     



  • @vt_mruhlin said:

    A mole is a number,
    oh haven't you heard?
    It's six times ten to the...
    twenty-third!

    Either you're remembering it wrong or the guy my teacher had a tape of sang it a bit differently:
    A mole is a unit,
    or have you heard?
    It's six times ten to the...
    twenty-third!

    @Vechni said:

     What I hate is when I see "sea salt" is listed as an ingredient when they are trying to market to those who are in the 'trendy, at least somewhat educated, healty food' demographic... it really doesn't take much more a very simple understand of chemistry at the high school level to understand that NaCl couldn't be any different no matter where it came from.

    But sea salt also has minerals and bits of dead diatoms and crap in it.



  • @snoofle said:

    I just went food shopping and caught this little gem.

    Diamond Crystal salt (plain NaCl table salt), now with 33% less Sodium (no, there is no K-salt, or any other salt in it). In other words, you'd be paying for 1/3 crystal filler.

    The really scary part is that there will be people who are trying to reduce sodium intake and buy this stuff thinking that they're doing the right thing, as opposed to just shaking a little less on their food.

    Just taking the advertising at face value...

    100% NaCL - 33% Na = 67% NaCl + 33% Cl

    Mmmmm... chlorine.



  • Just add water. Chlorine is more fun with water.


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