Table salt vs kosher salt

[Owen Lucas]

The goal is to block the thyroid by saturating it with potassium iodide to the point it can't absorb any iodine 131. That works in the short run and is the lesser of two evils when it comes to radiation but does not come without potentially serious side effects. Of course, you'd still absorb other isotypes from fallout. Iodide tablets may make sense or they may not, depending on the situation. It's company policy to have us carry KI tablets in our kit at all times. A one-time dosage of 130mg , one pill, is recommended and blocks an adult's thyroid for 24 hours.

So basically to protect you from thyroid cancer? Too bad this can't be done for other organs. Just put some KI in my Amazon shopping cart, have always wanted to stock up on these.

 

[vavavroom]

So basically to protect you from thyroid cancer? Too bad this can't be done for other organs. Just put some KI in my Amazon shopping cart, have always wanted to stock up on these.

That's the idea. It is not recommended that the general public self-prescribe iodide tablets. Take only if advised so by the proper authorities or by an M.D.

 

[Wolf359]

So basically to protect you from thyroid cancer? Too bad this can't be done for other organs. Just put some KI in my Amazon shopping cart, have always wanted to stock up on these.

Yeah, it's only handy if there's some radiation spill or danger. Not really useful if there isn't one and not good to take just for the sake of it.

 

[vavavroom]

Yeah, it's only handy if there's some radiation spill or danger. Not really useful if there isn't one and not good to take just for the sake of it.

Too much or not enough iodine can really mess up the thyroid, which in turn can cause the most sever health problems and even death. Iodide pills should be used as a supplement only by people who suffer from hypothyroidism and only under a doctor's supervision. Anyone who wants more iodine in their diet can eat seaweed and kelp. Just make sure it wasn't harvested in polluted waters, as it loves to accumulate Iodine-131.

 

[Wolf359]

Umm, don't all sorts of birds dump their own wastes on every farmers field in the country such that every vegetable you buy at a store has that too?

Not only that, but the FDA allows all sorts of other stuff like insect parts and poop in various quantities in different types of food.

https://www.livescience.com/55459-fda-acceptable-food-defects.html

https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredient...atory-information/food-defect-levels-handbook

 

[vavavroom]

Not only that, but the FDA allows all sorts of other stuff like insect parts and poop in various quantities in different types of food.

https://www.livescience.com/55459-fda-acceptable-food-defects.html

https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredient...atory-information/food-defect-levels-handbook

When faced with bugs crawling in his food, Russel Crowe, playing the captain in Master and Commander, said, "Always choose the lesser of two weevils."

 

[Owen Lucas]

That's the idea. It is not recommended that the general public self-prescribe iodide tablets. Take only if advised so by the proper authorities or by an M.D.

Yeah, it's only handy if there's some radiation spill or danger. Not really useful if there isn't one and not good to take just for the sake of it.

I don't plan on, or hope to ever have to use them. Just putting it next to the stockpile of toilet paper and tin foil hats.

 

[y_p_w]

This is not consistent with my lifetime of observations. For various reasons from pickling to sore throats, I've found myself making a saline solution from table salt and there is no sand undissolved at the bottom of the container. If I saw something at the bottom, and I always look, I'd think it was undissolved salt and agitate it till there was nothing, and then there is always nothing left, all dissolved salt.

The goal of iodine in mass consumer salt is a nutritional source of it, has nothing to do with radiation preparedness. Iodine rich foods tend to cost more than what the worker bees eat on a regular basis. I've possibly stated the obvious... kinda like why we have vitamins added to refined white flour, white rice, cereal, etc. The worker bees need carbs to do the labor and sweat doing it, so salt!

It wasn't silicon oxide though. I think that might have been a mistake. It's calcium silicate (at least on a container of Morton salt), which is actually similar in some ways to sodium silicate (aka water glass).

I've got some off-brand salt that my parents gave me (don't ask) but it doesn't have calcium silicate. It seems to include small amounts of baking soda and something called "yellow prussiate of soda" whatever that is.

OK - looked up what it is. It's an anti-caking agent. Apparently they don't like to use the chemical name - sodium ferrocyanide. I wonder why.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_ferrocyanide

 

[vavavroom]

It wasn't silicon oxide though. I think that might have been a mistake. It's calcium silicate (at least on a container of Morton salt), which is actually similar in some ways to sodium silicate (aka water glass).

I've got some off-brand salt that my parents gave me (don't ask) but it doesn't have calcium silicate. It seems to include small amounts of baking soda and something called "yellow prussiate of soda" whatever that is.

OK - looked up what it is. It's an anti-caking agent. Apparently they don't like to use the chemical name - sodium ferrocyanide. I wonder why.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_ferrocyanide

Yellow prussiate of soda? Prussian blue is given is an antidote for cesium poisoning.

 

[y_p_w]

So basically to protect you from thyroid cancer? Too bad this can't be done for other organs. Just put some KI in my Amazon shopping cart, have always wanted to stock up on these.

I don't believe thyroid cancer is a short term concern. I believe radioactive iodine can destroy thyroid tissue in short order. I believe the idea is to keep it from accumulating in the thyroid where it would normally be there.

I do remember on a visit to Asia, we ended up on a tour of a tea farm that produced mostly green tea. They had hard sell sales people (kind of went with the territory on some of the tours we went on) including one telling us how too much iodine in our table salt was bad, and how the tannins in the green tea supposedly neutralized them. They even had a little demonstration where it precipitated out when mixed with the green tea. I'm still kind of skeptical.

 

[edhackett]

Mhm. I’d never trust the origin that salt nor the dehydrating process, thanks. People are so quick to blame “chemicals” or “toxins” in various foods yet here we have a substance that is clearly contaminated and yet is marketed or considered as “healthy”.

Maybe my years of working in a chemical research lab has jaded me as to what constitutes a pure substance and what does not.

I put some JT Baker Ultrapure NaCl on a hard boiled egg once. It didn't taste like salt. It had a nasty, and I mean nasty, metallic taste. It's the impurities in table salt that make it edible.

I like the Redmond Real Salt. They tell you what's in it.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...ypical-Analysis-October-2021.pdf?v=1635480756

Ed

 

[y_p_w]

Yellow prussiate of soda? Prussian blue is given is an antidote for cesium poisoning.

Not sure how it's made but I saw something noting that a combination with an iron salt will make Prussian blue. However, it contains an extremely stable cyanide group, but the name itself is likely to freak out many. I did find this about why it's used in salt. Doesn't sound like it's just added to salt crystals, but has to be dissolved in the salt before it's dried.

Anticaking Activity of Ferrocyanide on Sodium Chloride Explained by Charge Mismatch​

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cg201661y​

Abstract​

Sodium chloride crystals have a strong tendency to cake, which can be prevented by treating them with the anticaking agent ferrocyanide. Using surface X-ray diffraction, we show how the ferrocyanide ion sorbs onto the {100} face of the sodium chloride crystal where it replaces a sodium ion and five surrounding chloride ions. The coverage is about 50%. On the basis of the determined atomic structure, we propose the following anticaking mechanism. Because of the charge of the ferrocyanide ions sorbed on the surface, the crystal can only continue growing by leaving an energetically unfavorable sodium vacancy, or by desorbing the ferrocyanide ion. Therefore, the ferrocyanide effectively blocks further growth of sodium chloride crystals, thereby preventing them from agglomerating and caking.​

 

[kschachn]

I put some JT Baker Ultrapure NaCl on a hard boiled egg once. It didn't taste like salt. It had a nasty, and I mean nasty, metallic taste. It's the impurities in table salt that make it edible.

That's odd, the sodium channel receptors on your tongue are pretty specific to that one ion. I wonder what else was going on there? Other ions can diffuse through the membranes but not like sodium can.

 

[wpod]

Umm....I don't think so. Most people get too much salt in their diet as it is.

Processed and packaged foods. Plus processed salts. Birds poop on produce as well. Animals may ingest poop on the food they eat. Eggs come out of the birds poop hole. plants are grown in,, yes I will say it ,,,, DIRT

 

[wpod]

It's all pretty nasty stuff if have too think too hard about where it came from. I mean - how clean can sea salt be when it's dried out in ponds like this? I've gone by these ponds before and there's all sorts of birds dumping their own wastes into these ponds. And of course all the various sea creatures that lived in the waters of San Francisco Bay.

This looks like Cargill's salt ponds on the Fremont side. I think that's Mission Peak in the background.

Been there for work,, it is an interesting place and what is really interesting a major name drug company [ Merck from my fading memory] used to have a huge plant in an area where Genetech took over that removed Magnesium from the bay water. decades ago the SF Bay area was an incredible place.

 

[wpod]

So basically to protect you from thyroid cancer? Too bad this can't be done for other organs. Just put some KI in my Amazon shopping cart, have always wanted to stock up on these.

What is interesting is our large animal vet and her husband have a huge, really huge cattle ranch in Oregon and she said that cows in areas in Oregon were getting cancer and with research it was found the soils lacked Selenium so the grass and hay they ate was lacking selenium. Supplementing Selenium to their foods stopped the cancer type in the cow. I thought that was interesting.

 

[JohnnyG]

In case anyone is still interested, the documentary I noted is called Chernobyl-30 Years On. It's free on IMdB. The sarcophagus is designed to last 100 years. The thinking is that by that time we will have figured out a way to dispose of the remaining melted fuel in a safe manner. Some of that was dropped into a salt mine in Germany. That material is now being threatened with corrosion and collapse of the mine itself. It is leaching into the water table as well. When the containment blew, TONS of radioactive material was released into the atmosphere and has traveled worldwide by now. Include Fukashima and other accidents Three mile island (?) and I'll continue to use iodized salt.
What the poor people of Ukraine went through was horrible.
I also realize that iodine may not do much good in that small a dose, but I just figure a little can help too.

 

[Wolf359]

I don't plan on, or hope to ever have to use them. Just putting it next to the stockpile of toilet paper and tin foil hats.

I think they expire after a couple of years. Not really sure if that's just a requirement that pills have to expire after 2 years or if they're really bad afterwards.

I also realize that iodine may not do much good in that small a dose, but I just figure a little can help too.

The max dose is 130mg. If you just have a little, the thyroid can still absorb radioactive iodine. If you have the max dose for the day, the thyroid won't absorb any more and you're good for 24 hours. But of course there are also drawbacks to the max dose so it's only good to take when there's an event.

 

[y_p_w]

I think they expire after a couple of years. Not really sure if that's just a requirement that pills have to expire after 2 years or if they're really bad afterwards.

There is zero chance that potassium iodide goes bad after two years. I guess it's one of those bizarre things where all "medications" are required to have expiration dates.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/drug-expiration-dates-do-they-mean-anything​

Most of what is known about drug expiration dates comes from a study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration at the request of the military. With a large and expensive stockpile of drugs, the military faced tossing out and replacing its drugs every few years. What they found from the study is 90% of more than 100 drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, were perfectly good to use even 15 years after the expiration date.​

​

So, the expiration date doesn't really indicate a point at which the medication is no longer effective or has become unsafe to use. Medical authorities state if expired medicine is safe to take, even those that expired years ago. A rare exception to this may be tetracycline, but the report on this is controversial among researchers. It's true the effectiveness of a drug may decrease over time, but much of the original potency still remains even a decade after the expiration date. Excluding nitroglycerin, insulin, and liquid antibiotics, most medications are as long-lasting as the ones tested by the military. Placing a medication in a cool place, such as a refrigerator, will help a drug remain potent for many years.​

 

[dadto2]

This is not consistent with my lifetime of observations. For various reasons from pickling to sore throats, I've found myself making a saline solution from table salt and there is no sand undissolved at the bottom of the container. If I saw something at the bottom, and I always look, I'd think it was undissolved salt and agitate it till there was nothing, and then there is always nothing left, all dissolved salt.

The goal of iodine in mass consumer salt is a nutritional source of it, has nothing to do with radiation preparedness. Iodine rich foods tend to cost more than what the worker bees eat on a regular basis. I've possibly stated the obvious... kinda like why we have vitamins added to refined white flour, white rice, cereal, etc. The worker bees need carbs to do the labor and sweat doing it, so salt!

The grains you mentioned are enriched to replace the nutrients that are lost during the refining process, not to boost up the nutritional value of cheap foods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_flour