Flavor Enhancers, Sweeteners, and Anti-Caking Agents: What's Hidden in Cooking Salt, and Is It Kosher?

After discussing sugar and salt extensively, and recently elaborating on salt production methods, how seawater is pumped into evaporation ponds, and what happens afterward in drying ovens – it's time to address the core kashrut issues, and perhaps health concerns as well, to understand whether salt is truly additive-free, or if something else is mixed in... and why does it come in different sizes? Is it because it was produced differently?

Well, after salt factories successfully extract salt from evaporation ponds, they transport it on long conveyors toward washing pools, where the salt undergoes washing in machines that spray water on it. After the salt is thoroughly washed, the water is removed through circulation, and the salt moves via conveyor to drying tunnels, where heating elements with air fans are installed. After the salt has sufficiently tumbled and completely dried, it's transported to filters. These filters are constructed with several sieves of various sizes, according to production needs. The sieves are built one above the other, so the conveyor dumps the salt content onto the top sieve, which is like a surface about four meters by four meters. The top sieve is perforated in such a way that all the coarsest salt remains in the sieve, while the rest falls to the sieve below, and the second sieve works on the same principle, with holes of a specific size that cause salt of that size to remain in the sieve, while finer salt drops to the next sieve. This sorting process continues from sieve to sieve, and this is, essentially, the great secret behind salt sizing: it's all the same salt, just sorted by different sizes to produce table salt, fine salt, cooking salt, coarse salt, and other salts.

If we try to give a brief overview, we'll find that type A crystal salt used for the water industry and dishwashers will be among the first sieves, because it's about 2.83 mm in size, on a 7 mesh sieve. Incidentally, it's the healthiest because it contains no additives. Following this is type C crystal salt, about 1.75 mm in size that passes through a 25 mesh sieve, which is also used for the food and textile industries, and it too is additive-free.

Regular kitchen salt, used for salting meat and cooking, falls into the same category as the previous ones. Its grain size ranges from 2.8 mm to 8 mm, and it too is almost additive-free.

And so the grain size decreases. For example, food industry salt is about 1 mm in size, and the familiar "Salit" table salt has grain sizes of 0.8 mm (on a 25 mesh sieve), and so on: "Red Sea Salt" has grain sizes of 0.6 mm (30 mesh sieve). Dry sea salt is 0.6 mm (on a 30 mesh sieve), fine dry sea salt is 0.3 mm (50 mesh), and it continues to decrease until it reaches the finest salt, which is like actual dust, typically used for the snack industry, for seeds and peanuts, to give them that delicate salty taste.

We've gone into a bit too much detail, but that's only to continue telling you that as the grain size becomes smaller, its kashrut issues multiply, because anti-caking agents, flow agents, and whitening agents need to be added. For instance, Salit salt contains E535 (a preservative, sodium ferrocyanide) and E500. True, these substances are chemicals that don't have kashrut issues, but that's because the Eilat factory has kosher certification from most of the best kosher certification bodies. But worldwide, there are substitutes for anti-caking agents that raise kashrut concerns, so one cannot say all salt is kosher without verification. By the way, according to studies conducted in the United States, natural salt is beneficial for health, but because salt companies worldwide add substances like calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, and aluminum hydroxide to make salt convenient to use over time, it was decided to limit salt use in the food industry, and who knows how many of these listed substances require kosher certification.

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Furthermore, kashrut issues become more complicated as grain size decreases, not to mention how much supervision is needed for reduced-sodium salt. By the way, don't be misled into thinking this is a special salt that underwent some process – it's regular salt in every way, diluted with potassium by reducing the sodium (salt) content by half and replacing it with potassium, hence it's reduced-sodium. And all this in the hope that customers will use this salt in the same quantity they're accustomed to using with regular salt, even though it won't have the same saltiness...

But with this type of salt, a battle of versions and formulations begins regarding what it contains as a finished product, because this salt contains many additives, such as whitening and preserving agents, flavor enhancers, and more, besides the flow agents and anti-caking agents found in previous types. Usually, reduced-sodium salt will also have additives like E636 (a flavoring agent, maltol), as well as E504 (magnesium carbonate), E331 (a preservative, sodium citrate), E450 (disodium pyrophosphate). True, this list generally doesn't present special problems, but the serious issue is that they also add a substance called E353 (tartaric acid). This substance poses a serious problem of non-kosher wine, and requires supervision. Today, tartaric acid has an alternative synthetic-based natural substance. This alternative material came about due to the difficulty in extracting kosher tartaric acid from wine lees, so they developed this new substance, which, by the way, is significant in price as well. Kosher natural tartar costs $28, while the synthetic one costs $3-4. But all this applies only here in our country, and who knows what substance is used for reduced-sodium salt in countries without kosher supervision.

And even in places where this list is missing, there's still addition of sweetener to reduce the bitter taste of some raw materials, so it's no wonder that all salt requires kosher certification, and even if not formal certification, at least someone who has thoroughly checked the salt's analysis to be assured it doesn't contain various additives.

By the way, if your annual trip is to the Palestinian Authority, you should know that there, by law, all salt must contain added iodine, and that too is an interesting process that requires consideration...

And finally - salt production ends with it being transported immediately after sifting and mixing via special conveyors to packaging houses, and even there, kashrut concerns still exist. And so is the testimony of kashrut expert Rabbi Yigal Ben Ezra shlita: "During Passover there was once a story that they said they used a flour mill to grind salt, sounds a bit bizarre... but I personally asked Rabbi Landau 15 years ago, and he confirmed that they found such a thing"...