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There’s sea salt, which is considered safe for human consumption, but there is some other stuff, like microplastics and heavy metals. If it’s sold in stores, it has to pass safety standards. I would imagine that boiling it down would leave lots of contaminants.
I don’t think so as the salt we’re used to consuming is filtered, refined, tested for contaminants, and harvested from clean and controlled environments. There’d be the minerals and sodium chloride, but you’d also be left with bacteria, other contaminants, and microplastics
They harvest sea salt in the Mediterranean even without boiling. They built little mountains of salt, leave it outside, and sell it. People don’t die from it. You will eat some microplastics with it but hey where’s no microplastics today?
I‘m using kosher salt with iodine and sea salt seldomly.
Microbes wise it would be safe, but chemically safe is uncertain as boiling does not remove any toxins, if anything it would concentrate them if they are present.
I used to buy nigari, (for curdling soy milk to make Japanese tofu,) which originally was the residue left after refining the sodium chloride out of dried seawater.
The residue was other chlorides, almost all of which being magnesium chloride.
In a broad sense, since we are using the word salt to essentially mean sodium chloride, boiling sea water for salt would be safe and no different than any other unrefined salt. Although it probably would taste bad due to the higher heat level imparted on the organic trace water contents. Although the main taste differences in the various consumable salts is more reflective of their shape, size and texture than of their trace elements.
Salt is either mined (which is just ancient sea salt), or collected and evaporated from sea water. From there it is either consumed or refined.
Refined salt, or table salt, is just pure sodium chloride with anti-caking agents and usually iodized.
Unrefined salt (sea salt/mined salt) will contain trace elements and minerals unique to the region and collection method. Usually those trace elements are safe in the amounts consumed. Some may impart a different flavor based on those trace contents and shape.
There’s a finishing salt company that I love that air dries their seawater then cleans and purifies the remaining salt. Doesn’t leave much minerals but it’s tasty. And yes, you can air dry or boil.
Yes, but, it will taste really really bad. Jacobson salt in Oregon did a video about it. Yes you can heat the solution to drive the water off and leave everything else in the water but what you want to do is evaporate the water.
Possibly. The safety is primarily a function of how much pollution was gathered up with the water. If it came from an active shipping lane, near an oil platform, etc, it would probably be contaminated. If it was unpolluted, it would generally be safe. We do evaporate ocean water to obtain salt for human consumption (sea salt), but we also test it to make sure there wasn’t contamination before we ship it to be used for human consumption.
You would be left with a mixture of sodium, potassium and magnesium as well as other minerals, sulfates, and carbonates.
This is one step in the process of making sea salt but certainly not the only one. It would probably be safe for consumption but not the same as sea salt. Sea salt is made by then isolating the sodium chloride from the other things. Magnesium chloride is usually isolated as well and sold separately as Nigari, an ingredient for making tofu.
Safe? Yes. But possibly a bit gritty and fishy tasting, depending on how you collected the sea water. I have done this myself and although the boiling kills any bacteria, the organic material is still in there, along with a surprising amount of extremely fine sand.
It improves the color, texture and taste to filter it well before evaporating all the water.
in one of my classes we just learned about Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean, where salt plantations (via african slaves) did basically this with high salinity ponds
There would be other stuff than NaCl salt, yes. But since you boiled it nothing biological is alive so its safe to consume, at least about as safe to consume as table salt is.
If you boiled a gallon, you wouldn’t get much left behind. And you would get a heck of a lot more than just the salt. Icky stuff and the “bitter salt” from the bible.
TL;DR If the only unsafe thing in the water was salt, you are good. If your water is polluted, you are not.
Seawater has a lot in it: many kinds of salts, dissolved gasses, organic chemicals, suspended dirt, micro-organisms, wastewater runoff, sewage… the list goes on. The easiest way to remove it all is distill the seawater to get fresh water, and water only. You “catch” the water vapor and turn it back to liquid without any of the other stuff.
Making salt from the seawater works the other way, you “throw out” the water vapor and keep what is left. When you boil the gallon, or let it evaporate on a windowsill, you are left with ALL the gunk in the water forming a crusty residue inside your container. It is kinda hard to control getting just the little bit of salt without the stuff you don’t want. You end up catching other undesirable things such as chemicals and dirt.
Folks who make salt from seawater make use of natural processes that help concentate the salt. Natural evaporation takes longer but costs less than the energy to boil the water. If you set your gallon container somewhere with sun and wind the water will naturally evaporate. Wide shallow containers are best.
While the water is evaporating, dissolved gasses like oxygen and carbon dioxide “evaporate” as well. Salt is in the water because it dissolves so well. Dirt (suspended insoluable particles) usually settles to the bottom of the container as mud and the water can be decanted or poured off, or the mud can be filtered out initially.
Once most of the water evaporates, leaving – oh, say a cup of concentrated seawater – refilling the container will put more salt into the solution. You should now have water that is about twice as salty as the seawater you started with. Do this a couple more times and you no longer have seawater, you have concentrated brine.
Water can only hold so much of a substance. If you heat a pot of water, you can get it to dissolve a LOT of salt, turning it into a strong brine. As it cools down, or as the brine evaporates, there comes a point that the water cannot hold or dissolve any more salt. Once past this point salt begins to leave the solution by force. If water is removed quickly (by boiling) the salt falls out of solution as small particles and forms a crusty mass. When the water is removed slowly, the salt molecules have time to arrange themselves, and form cubic crystals. (Some gravel or shingle beaches of the Dead Sea have been evaporating sea spray long enough to have salt cubes growing naturally)
Continuing to evaporate your brine will result in salt crystals growing in your container. If you pour more brine on top, the brine is too salty to dissolve your salt crystals.
Lucky for us, the salt is both more plentiful and drops out of soution earlier than other chemicals. As long as your container doesn’t get completely dry, the ick should stay in solution. The other natural salts are not as tasty as table salt.
Really depends on the sea watee quality. Some seas have way to high levels of metals and other polution. Concentrating that into salt would make that more toxic.
Uhm? Never heard of sea salt? People mad salt that way over a long time, until they discovered salt mines. And the salt in the salt mines comes … TADA . From SEAWATER!
There would be more than just salt left. There would also be other minerals, impurities and even traces of pollutants or microorganisms. It would not be safe to consume directly. Salt suitable for consumption goes through a purification process, but not for throwing on French fries.
The remaining salt would generally be safe, but could contain trace minerals or impurities. If the seawater is clean, it should be fine, but it may not taste as pure as store-bought salt.
That’s how sea salt had been made for as long as folks needed salt.
Safe for consumption depends on where, exactly, you get the water and how much you boil off though, sea water will produce a salt crust before it’s all boiled off, and traditionally water was added to the vat as some boiled away for efficiency.
But assuming 1 gallon, grab it from your local beach not during a red tide and you’d be fine if you boiled most water off. Grab a gallon from the Port of Oakland and you could be looking at lots of heavy metal contaminants and other toxins that won’t be evaporated out.
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The salt would be entirely safe for consumption yes.
Though I might probably guess that there’s more to it than this, but “sea salt” comes to mind.
Yes, yes it would
https://maldonsalt.com/us/
if anything, you’d probably be able to use it for religious purposes
since you boiled the hell out of it
If you have ever flown in to San Francisco, you will see pink salt fields in the bay. Evaporating making salt.
San Diego Bay has been the site for a sea salt business with ponds for evaporating ocean water since 1871.
If there were tiny little crustaceans in that gallon of seawater, it might pose an issue for people with shellfish allergies.
Isn’t that how they get salt normally? I mean I guess maybe you’d want to iodize it afterwards for extra nutritional value.
Yeah, once you pick all the micro plastics out.
We did this as a science experiment in school. We did filter the saltwater several times to remove impurities before boiling it.
Ghandi famously did exactly that, as a symbolic defiance of the British tax on salt in India.
Yes, but the energy requiered to actually boil it in a pot would not be economicaly viable.
Just buy it in a store.
There’s sea salt, which is considered safe for human consumption, but there is some other stuff, like microplastics and heavy metals. If it’s sold in stores, it has to pass safety standards. I would imagine that boiling it down would leave lots of contaminants.
Yes that’s called evaporated sea water
I don’t think so as the salt we’re used to consuming is filtered, refined, tested for contaminants, and harvested from clean and controlled environments. There’d be the minerals and sodium chloride, but you’d also be left with bacteria, other contaminants, and microplastics
They harvest sea salt in the Mediterranean even without boiling. They built little mountains of salt, leave it outside, and sell it. People don’t die from it. You will eat some microplastics with it but hey where’s no microplastics today?
I‘m using kosher salt with iodine and sea salt seldomly.
Microbes wise it would be safe, but chemically safe is uncertain as boiling does not remove any toxins, if anything it would concentrate them if they are present.
Define salt.
I used to buy nigari, (for curdling soy milk to make Japanese tofu,) which originally was the residue left after refining the sodium chloride out of dried seawater.
The residue was other chlorides, almost all of which being magnesium chloride.
Yes
In a broad sense, since we are using the word salt to essentially mean sodium chloride, boiling sea water for salt would be safe and no different than any other unrefined salt. Although it probably would taste bad due to the higher heat level imparted on the organic trace water contents. Although the main taste differences in the various consumable salts is more reflective of their shape, size and texture than of their trace elements.
Salt is either mined (which is just ancient sea salt), or collected and evaporated from sea water. From there it is either consumed or refined.
Refined salt, or table salt, is just pure sodium chloride with anti-caking agents and usually iodized.
Unrefined salt (sea salt/mined salt) will contain trace elements and minerals unique to the region and collection method. Usually those trace elements are safe in the amounts consumed. Some may impart a different flavor based on those trace contents and shape.
There’s a finishing salt company that I love that air dries their seawater then cleans and purifies the remaining salt. Doesn’t leave much minerals but it’s tasty. And yes, you can air dry or boil.
That is, more or less, how ‘sea salt’ they sell in shops is produced.
That’s not even boiled, just put in shallow pans while the water evaporates.
Yes. I have a friend who literally today posted her tests of boiling down seawater to salt.
It’s salt.
Yes, but, it will taste really really bad. Jacobson salt in Oregon did a video about it. Yes you can heat the solution to drive the water off and leave everything else in the water but what you want to do is evaporate the water.
I hope so…
How do you think they make sea salt?
Possibly. The safety is primarily a function of how much pollution was gathered up with the water. If it came from an active shipping lane, near an oil platform, etc, it would probably be contaminated. If it was unpolluted, it would generally be safe. We do evaporate ocean water to obtain salt for human consumption (sea salt), but we also test it to make sure there wasn’t contamination before we ship it to be used for human consumption.
People do usually filter the seawater first, just to remove large particulate, but this is how people obtain sea salt.
I still have some salt collected from Salt Island in the BVI.
Are you American?
I thought that was how you get sea plastic
Yes but you would have to filter it first to get all the other shit out
You would be left with a mixture of sodium, potassium and magnesium as well as other minerals, sulfates, and carbonates.
This is one step in the process of making sea salt but certainly not the only one. It would probably be safe for consumption but not the same as sea salt. Sea salt is made by then isolating the sodium chloride from the other things. Magnesium chloride is usually isolated as well and sold separately as Nigari, an ingredient for making tofu.
When sea water is safe for consumption (although we don’t drink it, but still), why wouldn’t the salt from sea water?
Safe? Yes. But possibly a bit gritty and fishy tasting, depending on how you collected the sea water. I have done this myself and although the boiling kills any bacteria, the organic material is still in there, along with a surprising amount of extremely fine sand.
It improves the color, texture and taste to filter it well before evaporating all the water.
in one of my classes we just learned about Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean, where salt plantations (via african slaves) did basically this with high salinity ponds
There would be other stuff than NaCl salt, yes. But since you boiled it nothing biological is alive so its safe to consume, at least about as safe to consume as table salt is.
Yeah, that’s how seasalt is made
Sea salt is literally sea water that has evaporated and what’s left is salt and trace minerals & impurities.
That’s why Japanese grey salt is grey and tastes a little different than Maldon salt.
If you boiled a gallon, you wouldn’t get much left behind. And you would get a heck of a lot more than just the salt. Icky stuff and the “bitter salt” from the bible.
TL;DR If the only unsafe thing in the water was salt, you are good. If your water is polluted, you are not.
Seawater has a lot in it: many kinds of salts, dissolved gasses, organic chemicals, suspended dirt, micro-organisms, wastewater runoff, sewage… the list goes on. The easiest way to remove it all is distill the seawater to get fresh water, and water only. You “catch” the water vapor and turn it back to liquid without any of the other stuff.
Making salt from the seawater works the other way, you “throw out” the water vapor and keep what is left. When you boil the gallon, or let it evaporate on a windowsill, you are left with ALL the gunk in the water forming a crusty residue inside your container. It is kinda hard to control getting just the little bit of salt without the stuff you don’t want. You end up catching other undesirable things such as chemicals and dirt.
Folks who make salt from seawater make use of natural processes that help concentate the salt. Natural evaporation takes longer but costs less than the energy to boil the water. If you set your gallon container somewhere with sun and wind the water will naturally evaporate. Wide shallow containers are best.
While the water is evaporating, dissolved gasses like oxygen and carbon dioxide “evaporate” as well. Salt is in the water because it dissolves so well. Dirt (suspended insoluable particles) usually settles to the bottom of the container as mud and the water can be decanted or poured off, or the mud can be filtered out initially.
Once most of the water evaporates, leaving – oh, say a cup of concentrated seawater – refilling the container will put more salt into the solution. You should now have water that is about twice as salty as the seawater you started with. Do this a couple more times and you no longer have seawater, you have concentrated brine.
Water can only hold so much of a substance. If you heat a pot of water, you can get it to dissolve a LOT of salt, turning it into a strong brine. As it cools down, or as the brine evaporates, there comes a point that the water cannot hold or dissolve any more salt. Once past this point salt begins to leave the solution by force. If water is removed quickly (by boiling) the salt falls out of solution as small particles and forms a crusty mass. When the water is removed slowly, the salt molecules have time to arrange themselves, and form cubic crystals. (Some gravel or shingle beaches of the Dead Sea have been evaporating sea spray long enough to have salt cubes growing naturally)
Continuing to evaporate your brine will result in salt crystals growing in your container. If you pour more brine on top, the brine is too salty to dissolve your salt crystals.
Lucky for us, the salt is both more plentiful and drops out of soution earlier than other chemicals. As long as your container doesn’t get completely dry, the ick should stay in solution. The other natural salts are not as tasty as table salt.
Filter it first and then yes
Yes, of course.
I’d put it through a coffee filter once or twice to filter out the stuff that wasn’t salt, but yeah.
Really depends on the sea watee quality. Some seas have way to high levels of metals and other polution. Concentrating that into salt would make that more toxic.
Uhm? Never heard of sea salt? People mad salt that way over a long time, until they discovered salt mines. And the salt in the salt mines comes … TADA . From SEAWATER!
Isn’t that where they get sea salt?
Invincible brainrot rotted my brain
There would be more than just salt left. There would also be other minerals, impurities and even traces of pollutants or microorganisms. It would not be safe to consume directly. Salt suitable for consumption goes through a purification process, but not for throwing on French fries.
are you sure?
No it’s too salty, you need to add it to food first
There’d be stuff other than salt, but probably not enough to hurt you, depending on where exactly the seawater came from.
There can be pollutants like mercury, or toxins from algae blooms, etc. Every once in a while a shoe with a foot in it. Stuff like that.
The remaining salt would generally be safe, but could contain trace minerals or impurities. If the seawater is clean, it should be fine, but it may not taste as pure as store-bought salt.
That’s how sea salt had been made for as long as folks needed salt.
Safe for consumption depends on where, exactly, you get the water and how much you boil off though, sea water will produce a salt crust before it’s all boiled off, and traditionally water was added to the vat as some boiled away for efficiency.
But assuming 1 gallon, grab it from your local beach not during a red tide and you’d be fine if you boiled most water off. Grab a gallon from the Port of Oakland and you could be looking at lots of heavy metal contaminants and other toxins that won’t be evaporated out.
Yes. Do it
On the island on Bonaire they basically flood fields with sea water, let it evaporate and harvest the salt. https://www.bonaireseasalt.com/what-we-do
Yes. So would your shoe.