Lifter said:
Sea Salt is around or about the same price, and having used both SS and KS, I cannot understand any role for iodised salt in this life (well, okay, I can still learn!)
Gotta jump in on this one.
First, I totally agree with my fore-posters in the differences between the volume of measurements of Kosher vs. canning salts due to granularity.
Now about that iodine issue.
Lifter, the reason for iodized salt is because we humans cannot survive without it and because obtaining iodine from other sources is an exceptionally dangerous crap-shoot.
Iodine is an essential micronutrient in the human diet, and its most important known function is as a component of thyroid hormones. Thyroid hormones are produced by the thyroid gland (located at the base of the neck). Thyroid hormones play a vital role in the regulation of metabolic processes such as growth and energy expenditure. They are essential throughout childhood for normal brain and physical development. They are also critical for normal development of the baby in the womb, so for women who plan to become pregnant, iodine intake is one of the important nutritional factors that are taken into account by their obstetricians.
A teaspoon of iodine is all a person requires in a lifetime. However, the thyroid gland does not have the capacity to store this amount, so small amounts of iodine must be consumed regularly in the diet…hence its addition to table salt. In fact, iodine became an additive to table salt in the 1920s to combat a near epidemic in this country of the most common Iodine Deficiency Disease, known as a goiter (caused by the thyroid enlarging to try and extract more iodine when not enough is present in the diet). Rarely, and I do mean RARELY, has a goiter been seen in the US since WII, yet they are still common in mountainous third-world countries especially. For example, Peru did a huge study in the mid 1980s and found something like 80% of their population suffered from one IDD or another (and I’ll save the graphics on some of those disorders). In about 1986, the Peruvian government mandated iodized table salt usage. Ten years later, the population at risk of IDDs there was reduced from 6 Million to slightly more than 1 Million people.
The reason why we have iodized salt is because there is no other way to ensure human intake otherwise. And iodine deficiency has been identified for a long, long time as the most common cause of PREVENTABLE brain damage in the world. Yes, iodine is found most highly (naturally) in ocean fish and seafood, but the levels are so erratic and totally beyond our ability as humans to control or regulate as the fish and seafood go about their ocean lives. Sea salt is actually an exceptionally poor source of iodine, typically containing less than 2 micrograms of iodine per gram of sea salt. (RDAs for adults 19 years and older is 150 mcg. daily, 220 mcg. for pregnant women, and 290 mcg. for those breastfeeding. And while iodine occurs naturally in animal products (eggs, etc.) and in plants, the soil is the source for that iodine and the older the soil is (mountainous regions), the more iodine has leeched out. There is simply no way to guarantee consumption when left to “natural” means.
For the record, iodine is most certainly contained in vitamins and other supplements, but iodized table salt is the easiest, simplest method of delivering constant amounts to the mass public because of its low cost and prevalence of use throughout the world.