Essential Real Sea Salt

23 March 2023

Indispensable Salt, a condiment and seasoning that has been pivotal in world history. Human life is dependent upon it. Salt, or white gold, was highly valued historically and used as a currency and trade commodity. The word ‘salary’ comes from a time when wages were paid in salt.

Salt was an early, effective, and widely used food preservative. It allowed people to live in areas with short growing seasons and long winters. It became common in religious ceremonies and known for its health and healing properties. Early population centers rose in areas where salt was readily available. Eventually, salt farmers harvested salt from the sea and greatly influenced trade and societal development.

Authentic Sea Salt

Real sea salt comes from evaporated seawater. Yet today’s commercial ‘sea salt’ is mined from the earth but marketed as sea salt because they say, “All salt used to be part of Earth’s oceans.” This is ‘legal’ labeling today.

Fine culinary sea salt primarily comes from Mediterranean and European coasts. EDEN Sea Salts come from two renown salt marshes in Europe, the ancient and environmentally protected salt flats of Portugal and France. Only hand harvesting and traditional methods are used to create EDEN Portuguese Sea Salt and EDEN French Celtic Sea Salt. These two salts capture the complete set of the ocean’s trace minerals and avoid use of any chemical additives.

‘Refined’ commercial salt and sea salt have most or all trace minerals removed and they are adulterated with cosmetic and flowing agent chemicals. Commercial table salt and food processing salt is highly refined. The nutritionally essential trace minerals that are removed are sold to supplement manufacturers. Refined commercial salt is 99.9% NaCl. Chemical anti-caking agents, dextrose from GMO corn sugar, and crystal modifiers to stabilize and make it flow from saltshakers are added. Real sea salt has over 60 essential trace minerals that enhance the richness of food by adding an overriding mellow and mild sweetness that brings out the deliciousness of good food. Eden Foods’ controlled kitchen cooking and apples-to-apples taste testing revealed surprising differences in the tastes of pure food depending upon which real sea salt was used. The overall best taste performer was unanimously found to be the triple sea water washed Portuguese Sea Salt.

Environmentally Protected

EDEN Portuguese Sea Salt is from the environmentally protected Atlantic coastal salt marshes of southern Portugal’s Algarve province with its beautiful seashores. Located at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, these marshes supplied salt to the entire known world for millennia. The Phoenicians became ranging traders and great seafarers because of these man made salt basins. This sea salt is still hand-harvested in the same manner used there for thousands of years. The Algarve region is ideal for sea salt harvesting with abundant sunshine, minimal rainfall, and hot, dry Mediterranean winds from the Atlantic and North Africa. The climate assists the evaporation process for salt farmers.

Salt marshes of Algarve, Portugal are a complex system of lagoons and canals. Their footpath banks are hedgerows that resist erosion during winter storms. The Atlantic flows into the canals filling the maze of rectangular, hard, sunbaked clay basins. Sun and wind evaporation transform the ‘sea’ into large coarse crystals that are hand harvested. Salt farmers draw them to one side of each basin with wooden rakes. The crystals are shoveled to an adjacent dry basin and piled into pyramids that become several feet high as the harvest progresses. The coarse crystals dry further before seawater washing removes sand and seaweed. Sun-dried again, the crystals are repeatedly seawater bathed. This cleaning process brightens the salt while preserving its minerals and taste. Finally, the crystals are milled, sifted to ensure a consistent size, and air-dried to become transport ready. The salt is bagged, shipped to Eden Foods, and packed in glass to protect it. This pure, real sea salt is a blessing.

Ancient Celtic Methods

EDEN French Celtic Sea Salt is from the Isle of Noirmoutier, Brittany, France which is quite famous for its real sea salt. Salt marsh basins comprise two-thirds of the island. Situated in the Bay of Biscay, in the Vendee region, the island is connected to the continent by the Gois Causeway. Warm reliable sunshine and constant dry winds assist evaporation and make the Isle of Noirmoutier ideal for producing sea salt. This Isle is an environmentally protected national nature preserve.

Atlantic waters flow into Noirmoutier’s sun hardened clay basins. Two days of evaporation creates large coarse crystals. Salt farmers gather the crystals using long-handled rakes. Every two days small amounts are collected and added to the initial drying piles until they become six foot high pyramids. After suitable drying, the salt is stoneground into what becomes EDEN French Celtic Sea Salt. No further processing, washing, or additives are involved. This traditional Celtic process captures a wealth of trace elements and produces eminently delicious sea salt.

Noirmoutier islanders take pride in the purity and taste of the sea salt they produce. Their craft has been handed down through generations and the island possesses unique qualities producing one of the most exquisite salts in the world. EDEN French Celtic Sea Salt is certified by ACTOA (L’Association de Controle Tiers Ouest Atlantique) “Selection du Saunier.” This organization certifies that the region of Noirmoutier maintains a pure, unpolluted environment suitable for organic agriculture and which respects the Standards of Salt.

Unrefined Purity

More than a seasoning and preservative, salt is essential in sustaining our life. Salt quality has a powerful impact on our comfort and body function. EDEN Sea Salt is the finest there is in its truest, most beneficial form. The difference is its taste, how it enlivens the taste of food, the wealth of trace minerals, and its beneficial effects. No additives, anti-caking agents, or chemicals are used or added.

A Principled Natural Food Company

What principles? Commonsensical, old-school, straightforward and forthright methods in manufacturing, professionalism, interpersonal relationships, and communications stem from macrobiotic principles that have guided Eden Foods since its beginning in the late 1960s. Appreciation of these principles has deepened over the past 54 years. These principles remain in use to test and evaluate our judgment and practices.

Translating macrobiotic principles to dietary guidance points to a fundamental need of pure whole grain being the fulcrum of one’s balanced diet. That done, most everything else will take care of itself at all levels; personal, mental, physical, emotional, societal, economic, political, spiritual, environmental, and interpersonal.

In the long run, improved judgment results.

The transition from commercial food to a healthy diet based around whole grain is no simple task, but it is a basic necessity to accomplish freedom, harmony, and to nourish intuition. This change requires focused persistence. Considerable experience and knowledge about food, its uses, and benefits are available to help those wishing to make this transition.