Pork and beans, salt and bottled water aren't always what they seem to be. DODY KUNDRESKAS Visit the Photo Place

Ingredients can surprise you

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I thought that salt was really salt. But look at the label. There's more than meets the eye. By Jim Kundreskas

Date published: 11/12/2005

STOPPING AT A local conve- nience store recently for lunch, the menu for the noon meal was a simple cold-cut sandwich along with a little serving of some home-style chicken noodle soup.

I grabbed a few pepper packets to spice up that broth a bit, and also took one of those little free sachets of salt in case the cook working on today's blend had forgotten to add enough to make it satisfying.

I just tossed them all into the bag along with my soup and sandwich and headed back to the office.

Sitting now at my desk, that tiny package of salt caught my eye. On one side it just read "Salt," but there was a whole lot of printing on the reverse.

The packet was only about the size of a postage stamp, but all that tiny script printed on the back definitely stirred some curiosity. I mean, this is just salt. Right?

A closer examination revealed that my "salt" actually contained the following ingredients: sodium chloride, sodium silicoaluminate, dextrose, potassium iodine and sodium bicarbonate.

OK, I understand that the potassium iodine is in there so I won't get a goiter, but what are all those other chemicals doing in a simple package of salt? Isn't "dextrose" a kind of sugar? Why would the manufacturer add sugar to my salt?

Sweet salt? Raise your hand if you think that's a proper combination.

Even if you took only the most rudimentary chemistry class in high school, didn't we all pretty much learn that salt was sodium chloride, or "NaCl" in official science talk?

Sure; I'll bet you remember that.

On the way home from work that same evening, I stopped at another little store and picked up a cup of coffee. I also grabbed one of their little free salt packets located on the counter next to the cream and sugar for fixing your coffee.

When I got home, I looked at the listed ingredients in this one: salt, sodium silico aluminate, potassium iodine and yellow prussiate of soda.

Date published: 11/12/2005