Celtic Sea Salt (Sel Gris), Not Even a Pinch of Paleo
Did you look into keltisch seasalt? (sic). I’ve read that it’s full of minerals and has the same balance between minerals and elements as our blood.
“Celtic” sea salt, most commonly known as Sel gris or gray salt in French is harvested from seawater in the estuaries near the town of Guérande in France.
As the tide comes in, seawater is first allowed to settle in clay silt ponds where the combined effects of wind and sun form a dense brine.
The brine is then channeled to shallow salt pans dug in the native clay where it crystallizes via solar evaporation to form salt.
The clay from the silt as well as from the salt pans impart Sel gris with its characteristic gray color.
Sel gris is a coarse salt that is typically harvested with a moisture content of 15%, whereas most sea salts and commercially manufactured salts maintain a moisture content of less than 1%.
I know of no comprehensive, modern analysis of Sel gris, so it is difficult to determine if the harvesting of sea salt from the estuaries near Guérande affects the salt concentrations normally found in seawater.
From a chemical perspective, there is no reason to expect that the relative concentrations of the dissolved elements normally found in seawater would be altered unless the processing of Sel gris adds or subtracts elements.
The salts in seawater are stable chemical compounds whose relative percentages are invariant.1, 2
The absolute weights of each of seawater’s dissolved salts will vary depending only upon the amount of moisture that is retained in Sel gris at harvest.
Because Sel gris is typically harvested with a 15% moisture content, then the absolute weight of the dissolved salts will be about 85% of their equivalent amount in dry sea salt (<1 % moisture).
In the single account3 I am aware of, the following concentrations of dissolved salts were reported for Sel gris (100 grams):
- Sodium 34 grams
- Calcium 287 mg
- Potassium 109 mg
- Magnesium 34 mg
- Iron 11 mg,
- Manganese 1 mg
- Zinc 0.35 mg
Let’s take a look at these values and contrast them to normal dry (no moisture) sea salt or normal sea salt containing 15% moisture which is similar to Sel gris’ moisture content in the table below.
We should first address a few important points:
- Does the data reported for Sel Gris appear to be accurate?
- Is it possible that the addition of clay to sea salt increases its concentration of some minerals?
- Is it possible that evaporation of sea salt in clay pans could reduce the relative concentration of normal sea salts?
- Is Sel gris healthful and should it be a part of contemporary Paleo Diets?
To answer these questions we first must take a quick look at the minerals normally found in clays.4
Geologists have classified clay minerals into four groups:
- Kaolinite
- Illite
- Smectite
- Vermiculite
All clays are rich in iron (Fe) and magnesium (Mg).4
The principal cations in illites are potassium (K), calcium (Ca), and Mg; in smectites, they are Ca, sodium (Na), Mg, Fe, Manganese (Mn), and zinc (Zn); in vermiculites the principle cation is Mg, but these compounds also contain significant quantities of Fe and Na.
Accordingly, sea salts contaminated with residual clays during harvest might be expected to contain additional amounts of Na, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, and/or K.
Indeed, if the reported Sel gris data is accurate, then the spreadsheet above confirms that Sel gris contains nearly 31% more salt (both sodium and chloride) than normal salt derived from sea water – definitely not a good thing health-wise!
Although some clays contain significant amounts of magnesium and potassium, the data above actually demonstrate Sel gris maintains lower concentrations of both of these elements than normal sea salt.
Regular sea salt represents a physiologically insignificant source of Ca and Fe, whereas the reported values for the reported Sel gris data are considerably higher.
Whether these data are accurate or represent measurement errors is unknown.
Although consumption of 100 grams of Sel gris delivers moderate quantities of Ca (287 mg) and Fe (11 mg), it does so at a terrible nutritional cost in terms of salt ingestion.
100 grams of Sel gris using reported data translates to 34 grams or 3400 mg of sodium.
The United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that we limit our sodium consumption to no more than 2300 mg per day.5
On paper, it may appear that Sel gris may be slightly more nutrient-dense for a selected few minerals than normal sea salt, but the bottom line is that Sel gris, sea salt, and common table salt all have undesirably high concentrations of NaCl (salt) which promote hypertension, osteoporosis, kidney stones, Menierre’s Syndrome (ear ringing), insomnia, motion sickness, asthma, and a variety of cancers.
Salt be it in the form of Sel gris, sea salt or plain commercial salt is not Paleo.
Cordially,
Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus
References
1. Castro P, Huber M. Marine Biology, McGraw-Hill, 9th Ed., New York, NY, 2012.
2. Baseggio G. 1974. The composition of seawater and its concentrates. Proc. 4th Int. Symp. Salt Vol. 2, pp. 351-358. Northern Ohio Geological Society, Inc., Cleveland, OH.
3. Bitterman, M. Salted: A Manifesto On The World’s Most Essential Mineral With Recipes. Ten Speed Press, New York, 2010.
4. http://earth.usc.edu/~dfarris/Mineralogy/17_ClayMinerals.pdf
5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Vital signs: food categories contributing the most to sodium consumption – United States, 2007 – 2008, February 7, 2012.