Pink salt crystals

The pink colour of the salt comes from a pigment secreted by microscopic algae into the lake water. The intensity of the pink varies with the amount of water in the lake. When the lake is drier more light is reflected from the white crystallized salt reducing the impact of the pink colour.

The salt was commercially harvested from the lake for many years and there is nothing stopping one from taking some salt home, just to give it a try.

This is a very old salt lake and I think it's a really special place. It's fed by several streams but mostly by water from deep underground. It's beta carotene that's produced by the live algae and in that process it forms the pink colour.

This salt has lots of marvellous minerals in it - phosphorous, calcium, magnesium, potassium. With most salts that we eat, these minerals are all removed so that we're just eating sodium chloride, and that's why salt has a bad reputation because pure sodium chloride is not very good for us.

More detail LARGE.