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Celtic salt and iodine — read this one

Unrefined sea salt is not an iodine source

This is worth being direct about. Sea salt comes from the ocean, and people reasonably assume it carries iodine. It does not carry a useful amount. The Victorian Department of Health states plainly that sea salt is not a good source of iodine and that if you add salt, it should be iodised. The Iodine Global Network and the US National Institutes of Health say the same.

Why this matters more in Australia than most places

Iodine deficiency re-emerged here, and since 2009 Australian food standards have required commercially made bread to use iodised salt — with organic bread exempted. For many people, iodised table salt and ordinary bread are the two main iodine sources in the diet.

The combination to watch

If you switch from iodised table salt to an unrefined salt like this one, and you also eat little bread — because you bake your own, buy organic, eat low-carb or avoid gluten — you have removed both at once. That is a real pattern in health-food households, not a hypothetical.

What to do about it

Iodine is in seafood, seaweed, dairy and eggs. Adults need about 150 micrograms a day; pregnancy and breastfeeding need more, and the NHMRC recommends supplementation for pregnant and breastfeeding women. If any of that applies to you, raise it with your doctor — we sell salt, we are not the right people to advise on it. We would simply rather you knew.