Why is sea salt considered not raw?

smidbrod

I have seen alot of comments on recipes stating that sea salt is not raw or to make the recipe raw use braggs, but everyone of my raw cook books use it as an ingredient. I find braggs to be good if yu want a soy sauce type taste, but it really doesn’t work well with some recipes. Please share your thoughts.

raw_earth

As long as it’s low temp, sun dried sea salt (like Celtic), it should be raw. Personally though, I use Redmond’s RealSalt brand from the bulk section of my health food store for a couple dollars/lb because it’s natural, low-temp dried (though it’s from salt deposits on land and not in the ocean) and much, much cheaper than Celtic.

Also, I don’t think Braggs is raw but I could be wrong. It just never seemed ‘natural’ to me, so I don’t use it.

smidbrod

After I posted this I read a past posting about braggs and it doesn’t sound so good, not raw, weird chemicals are used to create it, yuck, I don’t want to use it anymore. But have you noticed alot of people comment on recipes to use braggs or nama shoyo to make it raw. Does anyone know what temperture does to salt, are there changes to it, since it is a mineral?

Zoe

I think it is more the additives they put in salt which is the issue more than anything. It is normal to put in an anti caking agent. I use sea salt crystals from Ceres, they are tiny pyramid crystals that you can crush by hand. Can’t think what bad adding heat to salt would do though, it is a good question, hmmmm

raw_earth

I have noticed that all over the place, but I think I’ll stick with regular mineral salt. Nama shoyu is said to be a raw version of soy sauce, but although it is a ‘living’ food since it’s fermented, technically the soy itself has been cooked even though the soy sauce isn’t pasteurized (as far as I know). I’ve heard it’s not possible to make soy sauce without the soy being cooked at some stage of the game.

To me, when a main ingredient of a product is cooked, the product is not raw even if it isn’t cooked any further—like some of those packaged ‘raw’ bars that have been dehydrated at low temps and yet are full of non-raw ingredients (like peanut butter, soy protein, and grains). But if you’re not doing 100% though and don’t have a soy allergy or anything, I think nama shoyu is fine. I don’t use it because I was never much for soy sauce before raw, so I sub salt instead.

I’m not really sure what happens to salt when it is heated. The main thing to stay away from is chemically-produced salt, like the common iodized varieties. There’s definitely nothing natural about those!

blujett8

IMO there are quite a few “not raw” ingredients used in the gourmet raw movement. I don’t take issue with it, but as time passes my body is naturally prefering that I leave out the condiments and sauces.

smidbrod

Thank you for your insight, I really appreciate all the knowledge that has been shared, I am learning so much on this web site!!