Several years ago, I made what I *thought* would be a “simple” switch to sea salt. I loved the idea of getting natural minerals in our salt. I first tried a brand that many of my friends really love: Real Salt. It’s mined from ancient salt beds in Utah, and is packed with over 60 minerals. See all those little flakes? MINERALS!
Yay!
Halfway through the first, crunchy bites of macaroni and cheese, my dearest asked me, “Does this salt have sand in it?”
Sure tastes like it does. Well, it turns out that yes, Redmond Sea salt does contain silica, aka “sand” in the salt. That would be a no-go here. To be fair, most of my friends who also use this brand have not had this experience. Not sure why we were so lucky.
So, from there, I discovered a brand of “Gray Celtic Sea Salt” at a local international farmer’s market. In official healthy circles, the gray is supposed to prove that the salt contains lots of minerals. Gray sea salt is also sold as “damp” in both coarse and fine grinds. I chose fine ground so it would fit through the holes on the salt shaker.
Come to find out, damp salt doesn’t actually want to come out of the holes of a salt shaker. It enjoys forming a salt-shaker-shaped clump that just rocks back and forth in the shaker and mocks your desire for salty food. It also enjoys rusting the lid of the salt shaker. Drats.
The only other option is to get a healthy salt grinder with ceramic grinding mechanism. But the idea of having to hand-grind salt for every meal is making my wrist tingle just thinking about it. 
Is there some sort of conspiracy against me getting good salt?
Not to be deterred in my quest for good health, I had the epiphany that I am sharing with you here today. I would dry the salt. 
So, I spread out the salt on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and baked it at the lowest temp possible on my oven. I let it sit until it was dry, probably about 45 minutes? After is was dry and cooled, it had formed large clumpy salt cakes.
Remember the kindergarten trick for dumping glitter back into the bottle with newspaper? I used that trick to dump the cooled salt into a jar.
I sent it for a spin in the blender, and poured the whole batch of healthy, dry, sprinkle-able, fluffy salt into a sealed glass jar. And I re-filled my salt shaker.
fluffy fine grain dry salt…FINALLY!
I felt victorious, and just a little bit healthier.
Oh, and I will also reveal the REAL conspiracy of the healthy salt. Gray sea salt turns white when it’s dried. Looks almost exactly like the Mortons “unhealthy” salt, but it’s a bit fluffier. And we like the taste better.
I guess they sell it slightly damp to make it look “special”. You heard it here first, people. The REAL healthy salt conspiracy.
grey sea salt before and after drying
All’s well that ends well, and we’ve very much enjoyed the new healthier sea salt. It’s a gentler-salty flavor and texture than the store brand we used to buy. I highly recommend.
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