Himalayan salt is rock salt mined from the Punjab region of Pakistan. The salt often has a pinkish tint due to mineral impurities. It is primarily used as a food additive as table salt, but is also used as a material for cooking and food presentation, decorative lamps, and spa treatments. The salt is promoted with claims that it benefits health, but these claims lack any scientific basis.
Geology
Himalayan salt is mined from the Salt Range mountains, the southern edge of a fold-and-thrust belt that underlies the Pothohar Plateau south of the Himalayas. Himalayan salt comes from a thick layer of Ediacaran to early Cambrian evaporites of the Salt Range Formation. This geological formation consists of crystalline halite intercalated with potash salts, overlayed by gypsiferous marl and interlayered with beds of gypsum and dolomite with infrequent seams of oil shale that accumulated between 600 and 540 million years ago. These strata and the overlying Cambrian to Eocenesedimentary rocks were thrust southward over younger sedimentary rocks, and eroded to create the Salt Range.
Himalayan salt is chemically similar to table salt. Analysis of a range of Khewra salt samples showed them to be between 96% and 99% sodium chloride, with varying amounts of trace minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc, chromium, magnesium and sulfate, all at safe levels below 1%. Some salts mined in Pakistan are not suitable for food or industrial use without purification due to impurities. Some salt crystals from this region have an off-white to transparent color, while impurities in some veins of salt give it a pink, reddish, or beet-red color. Himalayan salt is nutritionally similar to common table salt, though it lacks the beneficial iodine that is added to commercial iodised table salt.
Uses
Himalayan salt is used to flavor food. Due mainly to marketing costs, pink Himalayan salt is up to 20 times more expensive than table salt or sea salt. The impurities giving it its distinctive pink hue have given rise to the belief that it is healthier than common table salt. There is no scientific basis for such claimed health benefits. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administrationwarned a manufacturer of dietary supplements, including one consisting of Himalayan salt, to discontinue marketing the products using unproven claims of health benefits. Slabs of salt are used as serving dishes, baking stones, and griddles, and it is also used to make tequila shot glasses. In such uses, small amounts of salt transfer to the food or drink and alter its flavor profile. Himalayan salt is also used to make "salt lamps", illuminated hollowed out blocks which radiate a pinkish or orangish hue. Claims that their use results in the release of ions that benefit health are without foundation. Similar scientifically-unsupported claims underlie use of Himalayan salt to line the walls of spas, along with its use for salt-inhalation spa treatments.
