What’s the best salt to sprinkle on your chips? 

This week, The Hard Shoulder’s Kieran Cuddihy and reporter Simon Tierney sample four distinct salt products for the Shopping Trolley Hotline. 

The four contenders are Tesco Cooking Salt, LoSalt, Achill Island Smoked Sea Salt, and CapeHerb & Spice Himalayan Pink Salt. 

Tesco’s cooking salt is “serious value”, according to Simon, costing €1.25 for 1.5 kilograms of salt. 

“You could kill a man with this amount of salt.” 

Simon said Tesco’s salt packaged in its huge plastic bag is “your classic chipper salt”. 

.@tierneysimon is getting salty on @TheHardShoulder this evening 🧂

Four different kinds of salt, how different will they be? Find out at 5:30 with @kierancuddihy 🛒 pic.twitter.com/BbdSWKyMnD

— NewstalkFM (@NewstalkFM) June 21, 2023

Simon and Kieran tried LoSalt, which claims to have 66% less sodium than the average salt. 

“For me it tastes quite different,” Simon said. “They are replacing it with potassium – maybe we should call it ‘palt’.” 

At €3 for 350 grams, Simon said with less sodium content, you end up losing the flavour and needing to add more of it to your meal. 

“It has less sodium, but you have to put more on, so are you really consuming less salt?” he said. 

Pink Salt

Next, Simon and Kieran tried the salt that has the country in a craze - Himalayan pink salt. 

“The country has gone mad for it,” Simon said. “I was in Dunnes and I saw not one, but two separate stands dedicated to pink salt.” 

At €5.99, the Himalayan pink salt is 379% more expensive that the Tesco-brand salt. 

“It’s a real status to have the pink salt if people are coming around,” Simon said. 

Sadly, there’s not as strong a smell and taste to the pink salt, and its high price does not make up for its pink colour. 

The winning salt was Ireland’s own Achill Island smoked sea salt. 

“It’s incredible – it smells of barbecue in the back garden,” Simon said. 

Being harvested fresh from the north coast of Achill Island, this salt differs from the other brands by coming straight from fresh seawater rather than salt deposits. 

“The sea salt it’s unrefined so it still has the minerals that might help your health like magnesium,” Simon said. 

At €4.90 for 75 grams, the Achill Island salt is the most expensive product – but according to Simon and Kieran, it’s also the best tasting. 

“It's by far the most expensive product,” Simon said. “But maybe that would make you use less of it.” 

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