I know salt is a natural preservative and all, but would anyone else wonder about the cleanliness of scooping up beach seawater the kid inches from you may have just peed in and eating the salt from it later?

It's a cute idea in theory, but I wouldn't really want to spend my vacation hanging around the stove waiting for water to evaporate.

@jmorri26 - i think this is meant to be JUST a souvenir...i think it's a really cool idea, but definitely not for eating!

@girloftars - hehe i hope so! Seems easier if just for a souvenir then to just grab a cupful of sand and put it in decorative bottles later.

@jmorri26 pee isn't even that bad. think about how many dead bodies are in the water. also, sperm whales. and garbage. i definitely wouldn't eat that salt.

Well, I mean, I understand the objections raised here, but isn't the natural sea salt you buy in stores harvested straight from the ocean, too? I think you're just counting on the heat to kill anything in the water and for the traces of other minerals to be pretty small. I'm not sure I'd go to the trouble of making it, but I think I'd eat it.

@likethunder- good point. I love how you went straight to all the dead bodies! HA!

Mark Bitterman would be so mad, I read his book Salted and I'm still not clear on where salt comes from, but most of the good stuff comes from salt plains, which are dry, no?

I'm not sure about doing this, either. The ocean is supposed to be a protected ecosystem and although it may not have an impact I'm not thrilled with the idea of people scooping sea water out of the ocean. It might also not be safe depending on where you are.

I'd be most concerned about the propensity of this salt to corrode my cookware, both because of the damage to the cookware, and because of what would end up in the salt as a result (i.e. paint residue, aluminum compounds, etc.). Commercial sea salt is generally created in a natural evaporative process, which avoids this issue and also avoids the perverse amount of energy consumption that this method calls for. Overall this doesn't seem like a very good idea. Am I being too negative? :)

I'm sure urine adds many wonderful trace minerals:) I will think about that next time I see a jar of fancy sea salt for $20.

I'd be much less worried about urine, and even sewage, than about oil and industrial pollutants. This method does call for boiling, which would kill any bacteria, etc, but would just concentrate the chemical contaminants as it concentrates the salt. The commercial sea salt places carefully watch their water quality--your average beach is just monitored enough that most people won't get sick from swimming in it.

I would definitely eat the sea salt as long as I was fairly certain the water wasn't highly polluted. Of all the crap that goes into our bodies this worries me the least.

I actually made my own sea salt when I was in Kenya. I didn't have all those fancy supplies, so I just filled a small container with sea water , covered it lightly with a plastic bag, and set it on my window sill. The water evaporated and it left wonderful sea salt! I didn't use any more water than you might accidentally swallow while swimming, and I didn't eat the salt all in one sitting, so I wasn't too worried.

@jmorri26 - deliberately taking sand really shouldn't be encouraged, however, you might want to consider gathering what you bring in (from flipflops, beach toys, and so forth) and putting it in pretty little jars.

When I lived and worked in the Caribbean, we collected salt (no preparation needed!) from the naturally occurring salt ponds. It was delicious!

I live in the gulf. If I made sea salt from that water I could probably forego my cooking spray too, heh...heh...