I've heard that they're good for health, but I don't know how so. It's good to that they contain 80+ trace elements. I bought some mainly because the color look so pretty in the bottle ... lol. You've just started my curiosity to find out more about its healthy benefits. I didn't know that it will be good for plants also. So, how long have you been taking your sol-lay? Have you found any difference healthwise after taking it? Here's a picture showing the different shades of pink they come in, although I don't know if the third bottle from the left is truly the Himalayan salt. I didn't find the info on the label.

I would like to learn how/when to use different salts. Me too! I don't have a great variety of salts, but lots of kinds are available to me locally at Penzey's and Central Market. I've often thought about buying some, especially at CM where they are available in bulk so that I can buy a little bit at a time. But I don't really know what to use them for.

Linda, it's being marketed to foodies as a finishing salt (although people who have a lot of access to it cook with it, too). Knowing your love of china and fine things, I'm betting you have some pretty salt cellars that would show off the salt and your collection. A lot of people use clear grinders to show it off, but I've found most don't grind finely enough or are made of plastic and look odd on a formal table. I wouldn't pass it as a block only because it could create a situation where someone feel uncomfortable trying to figure out how to handle it...or not handle it. :) (besides, all those hands touching it...ewww...even if you do know and love them! LOL!) Store away from moisture, naturally, but I'm sure you already figured that out. :) I'm not sure what the humidty is like were you are. If I were in KY, a baggy would be death due to condensation. Here, it's so dry that I'd go with a paper bag or baggy. Oh, an as for what to use it on? I forgot to mention that it's pretty on just a simple salad of mixed greens with some pommegranate seeds. I've got some Hawaiian pink and some black salt (now that is odd looking stuff!), but I hear the Himalayan flavor really puts the Hawaiian to shame. Enjoy!

This has been an interesting thread to follow, and I would have to say cooking is both an art and a science. In fact, I would say food at its best is a blend of art and science, after being a foods judge at fairs for many years. Leave the salt out of a bread recipe and see what you end up with? Bad science. Add the salt twice, an easy mistake, and see what you end up with? Bad science. Add the salt early and the gluten is harder to develop. Add the salt late in the gluten-development and it's easier to develop and won't require as much kneading. All science! The same goes for adding too much water, flour, sugar (or other sweetener); or flavoring ingredients which can affect the gluten-development in bread when you add too much - like cinnamon and nutmeg when added directly to the dough (this is why we sprinkle cinnamon/sugar on the dough surface for cinnamon rolls, rather than adding large amounts of cinnamon TO the dough. Add too much dairy and you'll end up with loaf with characteristics like - low-volume, poor symmetry, poor cellular structure and texture..... That's pure science. When people have a failed recipe, it's generally not from bad intentions or bad artistic interpretation, it's from bad science. Most modern baked goods are based on a ratio of ingredients. Stick to the common ratio whether you use a scale to weigh each ingredient, cups, pint canning jar, tea/coffee cup or mug... for your measuring tool-of-choice.... So take a moment to marvel at the science. "A standard plain cake has, by measure, 1/3 as much fat as sugar, 2/3 as much milk as sugar; and about 3 times as much flour as liquid." This ratio works whether you are making one small cake, one large cake, or enough batter for 100 cakes. Alter the ratio, such as trying to make a low-fat or low-sugar cake, or changing the type of flour used, and you will need to alter the known science with different ingredients and/or mixing methods. This science is most important when you develop recipes because you need to keep in mind ingredients that are tenderizers (fat and sugar) and those that are structure builders (flour and eggs), along with the other ingredients. Back to measuring flour for bread. This is one area that is completely without a standard for a scale or a dry measure, as all measurements for flour in a bread recipe are just a "good (or bad) guess". Add to that the way each person fills a cup with flour which will get you completely different amounts of flour if you were to weigh the amount on a scale, and the measuring cups themselves have NO standard in manufacturing. This is one area of baking where experience (art) along with science will help improve your bread. Due to the differences in the amount of gluten and moisture in flour, and those differences vary from brand-to-brand, season to season (moisture high during the rainy season and low during a dry winter) as well as from bag-to-bag of the same brand, you need to develop the "feel" (art) for bread dough. Your hands will "know" more about the dough than an exact measure. This is why you need to hold back 1/2-3/4 cup of flour during kneading. You may not need to add all the flour once it has the correct "feel" - and you may use all of the flour and require even more than the recipe called for..... It is also better to err on the side of a loose/wet dough than a hard/stiff dry dough. But I would also encourage EVERYONE to get a scale. There are lots more uses, along with measuring ingredients (especially if you find a recipe that is all weight measurements). It's the best tool in your kitchen when you MUST weigh something. It's far more accurate to measure 4-ounces of shredded cheese on a scale than it is to try to measure an equivalent in a cup - do you pack it tight/loose???? You can scale (weigh) the amount of batter in two cake pans to make sure you have an equal amount of batter in each of them so you have cake layers that are the same size. I even scale dough for burger and hot dog buns so I can adjust the size wanted/needed and make them consistently that same size, as well as the amount of bread per serving (a serving of bread is considered 1-oz.). When buns/rolls/loaves are the same size, they will bake more evenly. A reason to weigh the amount of salt is because of the size of the grains of different salt products. The finer the grind, the more salt grains there will be in a teaspoon (or whatever measure) because they will pack very closely together, while there will be less total salt when you put coarse-grinds of salt in the teaspoon because there are more voids of air between the larger chunks of salt. But the difference will probably not make a really huge difference in this bread recipe, but it IS a science factor you may want to keep in mind. And plenty of bread has successfully been made with plain old iodized table salt - even though I personally stopped using it many decades ago. So many things are choices, and neither totally right or totally wrong. -Grainlady