What manufacturers add to food salt and why we should read its composition

Edible salt is one of the most important products. We use it every day when cooking, for preservation and even for medical purposes. Since school, everyone knows perfectly well that table salt is sodium chloride and no one doubts that this substance is in the packs from the store. We want to shake your confidence, and at the same time warn you.

If you do something absurd from the point of view of human logic and read the composition of table salt on a pack, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Next to the quite logical NaCl in the list may be ... some E536 and E535. That's right — food additives began to be mixed into the salt.

Under E536 and E535 hides the same substance - sodium ferrocyanide or sodium ferrocyanide. It is also sometimes called "yellow blood salt" (GCS), hexacyanoferrate and other bad words. From the point of view of norms and standards adopted in Russia and some other countries, it is allowed for use and is considered safe. ZhKS is used to ensure that the salt does not stick and remains crumbly.

But if you start looking for information about sodium ferrocyanide in the scientific literature, you will be unpleasantly surprised. Scientists characterize this compound as "a substance with a low level of toxicity." At the same time, it has the unpleasant property of releasing toxic gases when in contact with water, which sometimes happens with table salt.

It turns out that E536 is part of many popular products. Among them are cocoa, instant hot chocolate, coffee, milk powder and cream. The substance belongs to the group of stabilizers and, as in the case of salt, is used to preserve the flowability of products.

The most unpleasant thing is that the effect of this "food" supplement on the human body has not been studied in detail. Therefore, just in case, a daily dose of E536 was established, which was 25 mg / kg of body weight. It is believed that yellow blood salt is harmless. But how many times have there been cases when even incredibly useful turned out to be deadly. Therefore, decide for yourself whether to buy table salt with additives or look for sea salt on store shelves.