What Are Naturiffic Gourmet Salts?
Left: Garlicky Lemon, Center: Gingery Orange, Right: Peppery Lime
All of Naturiffic Gourmet Salts use unrefined Trapani (Sicilian) Sea Salts as the base ingredient. You can read more about Sicilian Sea Salts in this article, named appropriately, Sicily's White Gold.
For our Gourmet Salts, Naturiffic uses a coarse sea salt and we blend it with just a few herbs and citrus.
Coarse Sea Salt
There are many good reasons to use a coarse salt, and only a very few reasons to use a finer version. Let's starts with the reasons to use a finer salt (table salt).
- Fine salt dissolves quicker when using in recipes (in case you are in a rush for your salt to dissolve)
- Fine salt will fit through the holes on your salt shaker.
Now let's look at a few of the reasons to use coarse salt
Our Salt on the left, Popular brand of "kosher salt" on the right - Click to zoom in for a closer view, the differences are visually obvious, both in size and color.
- The larger grains make it easier to control the amount of salt you are putting on your food.
- While all salt contains a similar amount of sodium, by volume there is less sodium in a tablespoon of coarse sea salt, than in a tablespoon of fine salt (table salt), so in effect you will end up using less.
- Better texture
- Better flavor (sea salt is unrefined and contains trace elements like magnesium, therefore giving it a more rounded flavor characteristics)
- Unrefined, no additives (typical table salt is heavily processed removing all the natural minerals and has anti-caking agents added)
The list of reasons to use a coarse sea salt over the traditional table salt is extensive and continues longer than space allows here, but I think the point has been made.
Herbs & Citrus
Take a look around at some of the seasoned salts available on the market. The vast majority use a low grade fine salt as the base and add a long list of ingredients to them.
Case Study # 1: This is a popular seasoning salt with a yellow label and a yellow cap.
List of ingredients:
Salt, sugar, paprika, garlic, spices, microcrystalline cellulose (anti-caking).
Hmmm...what spices? They already list sugar (really?), paprika & garlic...must be some secret spices.
and microcrystalline celluose...that sounds yummy!
According to Wikipedia:
"Microcrystalline cellulose is a term for refined wood pulp and is used as a texturizer, an anti-caking agent, a fat substitute, an emulsifier, an extender, and a bulking agent in food production."
Case Study # 2: This is a popular "Seasoned Salt" with a red and white label and a red cap.
List of ingredients:
Salt, Sugar, Spices (Including Paprika And Turmeric), Onion, Cornstarch, Garlic, Tricalcium Phosphate (Prevents Caking), Natural Flavor, Paprika Oleoresin (For Color). Contains No Msg.
Again with the sugar, and this time they give us some indication of what some of spices they use. The Paprika Oleoresin is basically the oil from a pepper plant. The Tricalcium Phosphate is another thing all together, look here for more information.
Now lets look at the ingredients of Naturiffic Gourmet Salts:
- Garlicky Lemon: Sea Salt, Lemon Peel, Garlic, Basil
- Gingery Orange: Sea Salt, Orange Peel, Ginger, Fennel Pollen
- Peppery Lime: Sea Salt, Lime Peel, Peppercorns, Coriander
Nope, no wood pulp, unidentified spices or hard to pronounce ingredients here , just simple, clean seasonings.
There is one other "secret" to our Gourmet Salts. We use dehydrated citrus peel, what this means to you, is that as soon as the Gourmet Salts hit the moisture in your foods, whether it is by the grill, or on the table, there is a re-hydrating effect that unlocks the citrus flavor in the salts. This provides a brightness of flavor that you just don't get from other seasonings.
You have a choice in what you buy to season your food with, I just ask that you take a hard look at the ingredients before you buy that next bottle of seasoning salt or rub. It doesn't take a long list of hard to pronounce ingredients to provide a flavorful product, just top quality ingredients provided by mother nature.
Clockwise from top left: Garlicky Lemon, Gingery Orange, Trapani Sea Salt, Peppery Lime