Difference between rock salt and cooking salt?

Answer 1

While both begin as sodium chloride, the coarse mix used on roads and highways contains high levels of chemicals such as sodium ferrocyanide and ferric ferrocyanide that prevent caking during storage. As you can imagine, areas with heavy snowfall require tons of salty stuff to keep roads safe and ice-free. If you've ever dealt with a clogged salt shaker, you can imagine what a pain it would be to chip at a mountain of salt once the first snowflake lands on your tongue. Your standard variety table salt also contains a tiny amount of food-grade, anti-caking additives along with iodine to prevent iodine deficiency.

But your basic table salt has come a long way in recent years. Like coffee, chocolate and even water, salt has gone chichi.

Today, you can sprinkle coal-black granules of Kilauean sea salt over your deviled eggs or grill a filet of halibut on a powder pink slab of salt hand-harvested in the Himalayans. Salt is even roasted to add subtle smokiness to Korean dishes.

If you and your sweetheart are feeling truly adventurous, visit your local gourmet food store and pick up a few varieties and have a taste test. But try not to go overboard. Most Americans consume more than twice the recommended amount of salt, resulting in a higher risk of Heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. To offset all that saltiness, I offer a few seasoning options that are good - and good for you.

Answer 2

Table salt is largely rock salt that has been crushed and purified. There is little real chemical difference as both are largely sodium chloride.

Table salt will occasionally have trace quantities of other things added such as iodine to prevent people getting goitres.

As you might expect, the guide to many things saline is found in the Wikipedia's entry on "sodium chloride", a term fairly interchangeable with table salt. A separate Wiki article on rock salt is found under "halite". Sea salt, is seems, is generally regarded worldwide as superior to its landbound relative.

Answer 3

Mostly purity. "Rock salt" tends to be sold for non-food uses, like spreading on sidewalks to melt ice or as bath salts, where it doesn't matter all that much if a small quantity of calcium or magnesium is present. In cooking salt, these impurities alter the taste and are generally considered undesirable. However, small amounts of chemicals other than sodium chloride may be added to keep the salt from "caking" or to provide minute amounts of iodine as a dietary supplement.