Could I theoretically grind up one of those pink salt lamps and use it to season my food?
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Yes, they come from the same mine in Pakistan. They process it into lamps, animal licks, rock salt, fine salt, etc from the same source.
Just clean the surface with a wet cloth to ensure there's no residual dust/debris and you can shave away. It probably won't yield even size grains, but you can use it for whatever you like.
it's more for a joke example though, much easier to just buy the salt.
That all being said, the ones from Pakistan are not usually coated in anything after raw production, so if its from an unknown source, you might want to check if the seller maybe added some spray on agent to protect the salt, although I really don't see any reason why they would do that.
::: spoiler spoiler And don't buy any pink salt that says "made in India". That money essentially funds some PMLN crooks who thought it would be funny to kneecap Pakistan's agriculture export market by banning sales to any broker except themselves, of which they heavily undersell to India who then makes profit and shares it back only with them. :::
EDIT: For everyone saying "not food grade", the only difference is that it wasn't quality tested for ingestion. That doesn't mean the salt isn't edible, it's just not tested for that purpose. The mined salt rocks are the same for everything, only difference is size to be sold to each factory. I checked and apparently some sellers do coat the lamps with a protective gel for shipping purposes, so you would want to wash that off first.
Be careful with the outer layers at least, they could be covered with a protective layer.
In my (relatively uninformed) opinion, mostly yes, but kinda no.
While a salt lamp is made of mined salt they're usually made of a lower grade of salt than the stuff that ends up for food use, so you'd probably end up with some unpleasant "dirt" flavors in the salt. However, more importantly most salt lamps I've seen have been varnished, since raw salt will absorb moisture from the air and melt into brine. So you'd also be consuming a lot of whatever they used to give the lamp a moisture proof coating and I don't know how food safe that is.
I'm sure it's possible, but take that with a grain of salt
Son of a bitch...
I wouldn't. While yes, it is technically salt, it isn't food grade. You could have a safe to eat lamp OR a lamp contaminated with toxins or heavy metals or radiation. And that's before whatever processes may have been done during manufacturing to turn it into a lamp. Not to mention if it's been sitting out it'll be covered in dirt and dust which is also not great in food (not dangerous, but not enjoyable either).
I mean theoretically you can grind up whatever you like and season your food, at least once.
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Dried fetus
Fetusinni Alfredo
It'd be a red sauce, no?
Works for billionaires
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Its his brows going "oh... Oh no..."
I'm pretty sure it's a pictographic fish
You definitely can but its not food-grade so perhaps take that into account.
Since this is "no stupid questions", I will follow up with a question and demand that you not call me stupid: what about the lamp makes it "not food grade"? I assume that both salts are just NaCl, so do salt manufacturers put the salt through some process to remove dangerous contaminants or something?
probably has chemicals or contaminants you cant use. i remember somone ask on another site, if we can use our own sebum oil as cooking oil.
Food is regularly tested for any poisonous/harmful contaminats. I would assume lamps don't undergo the same quality control
One contains some other stuff too, the kind that you don't want to eat
I'm sorry everyone is advising against it. If you need a pink salt itch scratched they make big blocks of salt the size of cutting boards to season steak (or something I guess, I think it's a solution looking for a problem) but they are food grade so buy five of those, stack them into a cube (bottom face is the table) and put a flashlight inside the box and go to town!
I've cooked with one of those. The idea is that you put it in your heat, then use it like a pan once it's warm through.
I've only used it once so far (cleaning it looks intimidating since you can't use water on it) and I was skeptical it would work as claimed, so I seasoned my meat beforehand.
I can confirm that it is very effective at conferring saltiness.
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Sure, as long as you avoid the bulb, but it is probably contaminated with a variety of heavy metals.
Someone gave me one as a gift when I lived on the Florida coast and I had to throw it away because it wicks up all the humidity and then leaks it onto whatever surface you have it on. Shit electronics sitting in puddles didn't seem like a good idea.
Yes. They’re also delicious to lick.
Only if you make a video of it and share it with us.
Try it, and report back. If you don't report back, we'll assume you're dead, and divide up your collection of POGs.
Are any of them Alf(tm) pogs?
I call dibs on that wicked cool slammer!
Follow up question: how does one process mined salt?
Yes
Turns out
youwe’re not alone in the worldhttps://homeimprovementway.com/are-salt-lamps-edible/Edit : Don’t click on that, like it was pointed out this is probably AI generated
Don’t eat your Salt Lamp, this is not food grade Salt
That article is LLM generated. A third of the way into the article and without any human sense of self-awareness or irony it says:
That's an em dash, notoriously something LLMs use. Then after that there's a lot of dot pointed lists and tables. Again, indicators of an LLM generated article.
It drives me nuts that em dash use is assumed to be LLM. I use em dashes all the time, I like them and I don't want to stop using them and I also don't want anyone to assume I'm a dumbass LLM
I feel you. I really like bullet points.
Em dashes alone don't mean things are AI generated—many of us use them, even if you dont.
Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve edited my post
Could? I dunno: can you ? May? No, you nay not!
If you have no other options I'm sure it would be fine if you wash off the outer part just for safety. In reality I bet its cheaper to buy pink salt off the jungle site.
It's salt. What sort of pathogen is capable of living on it to begin with?Edit: I guess the concern would more likely be some kind of chemical contaminant from the mining process, which I suppose could be helped by washing.
Lead contamination or other heavy metals (chromium freaks me out). I wasn't too worried about pathogens/virus/bacteria/fungus as like you say its salt. Its been a preservative for 1000's of years :)
Varnish. Resin.
Oh another great point, never considered they would varnish it. Makes sense as salt can easily break up so for shipping it would track
Couldn't you just lick it and find out?
I am also curious.