Of course it contains salt although it comes from the living sea rather than a long buried deposit that has been mined in Cheshire. But our sea water also contains other things: mostly trace elements reputedly over 75 elements including gold, silver, zinc, magnesium, calcium, and iodine.

We know that the body needs tiny amounts of these elements and notice that many people take health food supplements to make sure they get them.

Those elements are both essential to health and they impart flavour - in wine terms it has a terroir - sea salt tastes different from different seas. All wine is fermented grape juice but no two wines taste the same and this also applies to sea salt!

A quote from Delia Smith
“a fat, chunky chip wrapped in a rocket leaf, then dipped first in mayonnaise then in sea salt, is a quite wickedly brilliant combination”

How can Halen Môn, sea salt of such high quality, taste and purity, be bad for you?

Quite simply we would die without any salt in our diets.

Given that we need a salt as part of a balanced healthy diet, then why not make sure that it is the very best, measured by taste and by composition.

It is a fact that many people in the Western world eat too much salt and this can lead to medical problems associated with high blood pressure and strokes. Over three quarters of the salt in the diet comes from processed food and this has had so much taste and nutrition removed that often salt is added to make up for lack of flavour. The declining added salt levels in cereals and baked beans show that food manufacturers are aware of this.

As part of a balanced diet there is a case to eat less processed food. If you are looking to reduce your salt intake then add less salt to food as it is being cooked but keep a small bowl of Halen Môn on the table. For example a home grown organic tomato with a few flakes of Halen Môn is delicious, as is a free range boiled egg with Halen Môn and our Wynad black pepper. I find it hard to imagine a salad without good olive oil, salt and pepper and ideally a touch of balsamic vinegar.

How could our Halen Môn Sea salt be better for you than table salt or indeed other sea salts?

1. Halen Môn contains no additives. Commonly used additives in salt are Sodium Hexacyanoferrate II and Magnesium Carbonate. The body needs neither of these and the former is banned in America due to possible links with cancer. They are there to suit the manufacturer who can then process and pack so that the product flows smoothly through industrial machinery. In theory the salt should not clog your salt cellar as it will be less hygroscopic. Somehow the salt cellars I try often have blocked holes or the salt grinders don’t work. In some humid climates people add rice to take up some of the moisture.
2. Our sea salt has key trace elements in it that are not removed by an industrial process and are specific to our area. When commercial salt is made it is stripped of anything except sodium chloride. This makes it much easier to handle for manufacturers. Our sea salt is evaporated under a vacuum and then a small amount of top heat is added. This means that our clean sea water gives up some of its calcium and magnesium but much remains in the final product along with 30 other trace elements. In fact the flavour largely comes from a balance of calcium and magnesium which with the right tasting and washing each day gives our sea salt its flavour. We rinse our sea salt in this very salty water by hand to get the balance of flavours that make it taste just like clean sea. So the trace elements taste good and are good for you.
3. Any cook will tell you that the quality of their cooking is a reflection of their raw materials. So it is with the sea. We have a clean Gulf Stream washing round Anglesey with a double tide and this constant supply of clean warm sea water is important to us. There are no large cities or polluting industries upstream of us.
4. This sea water is filtered by two natural methods before we start to prepare it for our customers. In front of us we have a huge mussel bank of several thousand tonnes with each mussel filtering up to 5 litres of water an hour. We abstract the sea water through a natural sand bank which acts as a second natural filter. Finally, as an insurance against any possible undesirable elements in the seawater, the brine passes through several manmade filters which go to a fineness of several microns.
5. If you spent some time as we do tasting sea salts you would conclude that Halen Môn is stronger and saltier than all other brands currently available on the market. This means you need less of it to deliver the same level of taste. Many new customers are amazed at how little they use which is bad news for us but good news for you.
6. We have to acknowledge that too much salt is bad for you – however, too much of almost anything is bad for you – from chocolate to pizzas, to beer, coffee and indeed, almost any food or drink, including water.

The proof of the need for salt is the existence of saline drips in medicine. The Sodium in sea salt plays an important part in controlling the fluid balance in the body. Some salt is needed to ensure that muscles and nerves work properly and to maintain a normal blood pressure. However, too much salt, particularly processed salt, can contribute to high blood pressure in susceptible people. We are told that we need 1.5grams per day or three quarters of a teaspoon but 6grams is a reasonable guide from the Food Standards Agency. It is true that many people liberally add table or cooking salt to cooking and sprinkle over most savoury food. This is unnecessary and can even mask the flavours of the food it is being used with. Instead we recommend less salt used in cooking and a little salt used to enhance the flavour of key foods either as a finishing salt at the end of cooking, or added at the table.

The effect of media pressure about salt is demonstrated by a recent conference in Austria where a professor has noticed that elderly people have cut down on salt so much that they get too little. This leads to hallucinations, depression and incontinence.

(www.foodnavigator.com/news/homepage/science and nutrition/elderly need to up salt levels)

The complementary health world recognises the importance of salt and a quote from Dr Peter Mansfield suggests this “Most health conscious people now have too little salt in their diets. This poses a risk of dehydration. The body is more than capable of flushing out excessive salt through the kidneys” (from Susan Clark: 'What really works – An insiders Guide to Complementary Medicine')

We can’t make any health claims for Halen Môn but what we can state unequivocally is that is pure, contains trace elements and is truly delicious.