Why Kenyan River Reed Salt Is So Expensive | So Expensive
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- On day one, harvesters cut out these river reeds. And in 8 days, after drying, burning and filtering, the reeds will produce one of the most expensive salts in the world. Just one tablespoon of river reed salt costs about $1 in Kenya. Compare that to the 4 cents it costs locals for the same amount of sea salt. So how do producers make salt from river reeds? And why is it so expensive?
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Why Kenyan River Reed Salt Is So Expensive| So Expensive
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What boggles my mind is how someone at some point of time thought about and devised this process and generated this salt
Im about to comment this hahahaha its kinda intruguing who or what influence them to create such complex technique.
It can only be devine wisdom and guidance.
@@fiddleywest3778 Dissolving the salt out of something in water and then evaporating the water to collect the salt is hardly rocket science.
It seems a little patronising to think that such people could only work it out with the help of some higher outside intelligence.
Their taste buds will have told them the plants contained the salt and the rest would have been fairly obvious I imagine.
He told us it was "The Magic".
Same!!! hahahaha
I'm glad that there's a decent local demand for the salt and that locals appreciate it. Things like this definitely deserves attention.
sound like crap jod
i honestly wanna try and get it. with the flavor they described in it i can only imagine how delicious it would be on a steak
I really enjoy this series, it's so interesting to hear about different cultures and how local people are keeping that culture alive after generations. Keep up the good work
Agreed . End my day with videos like this .
Man, this is a wonder world in your head. They do it just to survive.
I hope they will move in another country and stop doing unpromising things like harvesting and evaporating dumb salt.
@@XzctR huh, I have a wonder world in my head? you might think its dumb salt but #1 no one cares and #2 the local community thinks otherwise soo
Happy to see 🇰🇪 Kenya being featured
My dad was born in Kenya🇰🇪🇰🇪🇰🇪
And i just want to add that i think the Kenyan flag is one of the coolest national flags in the world!
The pronunciations though really killed me. Couldn’t stop laughing.
Proud Kenyan 🇰🇪
@@sufferr2914and so!!?
you are still Kenyan by blood but not by birth
I hope everyone notices the labor of Andrew and not just for his production, but for his intelectual level of commitment, as he tryed getting the reeds in artificial way and made a conclusion.
I really liked that part. Perhaps he came to the conclusion that the actual source of salt is somewhere in the river's course, the river carries the salt downward and the reeds absorb the salt during blooming season.
@Irving Shekelstein yes, at a basic level perhaps
@Irving Shekelstein Maybe we can call him a scientist. He did employ the scientific method and found something. This kind of discovery is actually worth a scientific paper in a recognized journal, if properly written down.
@Irving Shekelstein you must be really smart and fun at parties.
@Irving Shekelstein Nah. You can decide that. Clearly you are qualified to nominate people for the Nobel prize.
Man I wish I could order some of this salt directly from this gentleman! Love to see him working hard and grinding for his! Much Respect!
Am kenyan i can get this for you.." chumvi ya kienyeji" its a realy good type of salt
@@trevormorara9770 can you still get some?
@@trevormorara9770 let me know how I can work with you to try some.
@@PYPoison cool where can i get it for you or deliver it to you.
This is amazing!since we started using the salt in the hotel,it's popularity is growing, people around bungoma (Kenya)love it for it's medicinal values,and it's ability to tenderize meat..as a chef I can say it's cost meets it's value....
How can we order this River Reed salt?
Where can I buy this salt? Would love to try it once
Please talk about it's medicinal values because it's hard to find veritable info about it.
There is most likely no medicinal value in this salt. I really want to taste it though.
Never heard of this salt till today...where can it be bought?
As a Kenyan this is the first time I’m hearing about this. Incredible.
Me too.
I'm curious if a similar type (certainly not identical) could be made elsewhere in the world. Rivers all around do have reeds, but I've yet to hear of anything like this process in other places
You are not alone!
Ata mimi manzeh
Mm pia man 😂
It's expensive because other salt is cheap. It only seems expensive but given the labor going into it, it's not all bad.
I would say it's quite cheap considering the labor that goes into it.
Same as pink Himalayan salt. It's expensive because of labour and also the shipping cost. It has no medicinal values or extra taste, it just looks distinct because of the pink colour of it.
I love that you did a deep cut locally expensive thing like this, I had never heard of it. More of this kind of content pls
One day:
Why natural water is so expensive
Why natural air is so expensive
Why natural soil is so expensive
It's really sad when we get to that point. Even now microplastic is already in our bodies. The damage to nature that humans do is immeasurable and we only realize it when we lose access to natural things.
this is a manifestation some 150 years from now this will be the case even though none who is alive now will ever see it manifest
Good soil is actually quite expensive
I've lived in Kenya my entire life and I've never heard of anything like reed salt. Our local journalism must be trash.
wa kenya ni royalty test tu... who is cheating on who 🚮
Because they only focus on reporting politics and murder or accident news everyday
what amazed me is the person who discovered it. Of all the grasses out there, he was able to find out that these reeds can produce salt 😂
The water has salt in it. Grasses grow in the water. Grasses have salt. Could probably do the same with getting the water and letting it evaporate.
@@jamesbizs I'm sure people would have done that if that would produce good salt but I think the reeds work as a cleaning agent in the process of obtaining the salt. There might be just too much other stuff inside that water. Or maybe not, who knows.
This salt sounds delicious. I love anything that has even just a hint of umami, and I loooove a good salt.
So this seems like the salt of my dreams.
C'mon man, go buy some Morton's
Nah i'm ok.
Use regular salt with a touch of msg. Salt is salt.
Just salt
meteorites have umami too :) try one !
That river reed might contain a lot glutamate like tomatoes. So the salt is like tomatoe extract having the umami effect.
Sounds like it. Expensive msg.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 natural msg.
@@TheBooban it's all natural. They extract it from seaweed.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 thats cap
@@culodesobra you even know what msg is made from???
Looking at the prices of some “luxury salts”, I think they could sell it for more!.
Yea way more.
The process itself is an art.
Those are being sold for a really cheap price if compared to the work these guys have put into it.
Word.
This is why infrastructure is as important as production, you cannot pay a fortune to people that literally produce in stone age technology and forgive me for the rudeness but this is a reality in the whole world...
@@carimpest Yeah true 👍 but there are things which just couldn't be manufactured in a different way and if done it looses it's value and originality.
@@krishnaag6366 Japan is an example, technically the Wasabi making process is the same but the way they preserve the plants, take care of their employees, and also the sustainability is way more of this century, and not like in edo Japan, where I assure you they would cut the hands of a worker if one rut got ruined...it also reminded me to the liquor made in India out of the cashew apples ,they made it like if it was the first century...there's a reason why it isn't mainstream 🙄
@@carimpest hmm. But i think you can pay for it if that’s what you want to do. People pay for stupid things all the time. They could triple the price of this salt and you wouldn’t notice the higher cost for a meal in an upscale restaurant.
This is so interesting. In the Philippines we have a similar salt called "asin tibuok". It has the same process in making it.
I was about to say the same thing! The only difference is they use papyrus and asin tibuok uses coconut husks.
I wish that traditions like asin tibuok would continue to exist.
@@rafaelperalta1676 one piece is about 400 pesos now😅...and it's hard to find too, even though I'm just a few towns away from the makers
Whoa. I'm from the Philippines and I've never heard of this. So cool
@@astayandablinkisastink9980 I wonder what the price could be here where I live. I'm from down south of Ph. 😅
Edit: Maybe the production is low(I've seen Erwan's video about it). I personally think most of the supply straight up goes to restaurants and other buyers.
“I feel like eating powerful salt today”
Normally there’s a depressing twist in the tale that the people taking the risks and putting in the hard labour aren’t the ones who see any of the rewards. I’m glad in this instance their work pays them directly.
I was thinking that. It's good to see.
I believe it’s not even expensive. For the amount of work it takes for these guys just to make 20 dollars. I think i would pay five times the price of it if the farmers get all the money
This is so weird, I've never heard of ash being turned into salt.
I'm assuming it contains a lot of potassium? Might be a good source for it
It is kind of a huge part of making gunpowder. Saltpetre is a salt made from grass and urine
Yes its potassium salts. Nothing more nothing less. A plant in so much water would not contain high NaCl
There is also bamboo salt, they have video about it
@@Ahinana yeah but that's salt with bamboo being burned around it to enhance it. Not bamboo being extracted from bamboo
In canada, animals like moose must eat aquatic plants in order to get enough salt in their diet. I guess reeds worldwide just have more salt in their tissues
I love this channel they bring the best kind of documentaries that others can't match.
I would love to try the River Reed salt! It sounds very delicious. I can't imagine how good it would be with many kinds of good foods. Wish one day it can be sold in America as well :)
😉
I can ship you some!
@@nandakoC I would love to buy some. Can you help me?
I absolutely adore these workers, they are so proud 🤜🤛
Wow what a crazy long process to get a tiny bit of salt. I admire his patience. So much work. I bet it tastes amazing
Hahaha am from kenya how she said "Chumvi ya Kienyeji" really made me smile....proud to be Kenyan 🇰🇪.
I and my friends LOVE the SoExpensive series Please continue. Thanks
This is a great story as a Kenyan I approve-:) and proud.
Wasiendee chumvi ya River Yala 😬
@@QOOQ8808 no no that one is tainted with You know what.
Great video. Just for clarification, "chumvi ya kienyeji" is kiswahili for "traditional salt", not river reed salt.
But comes from reeds
Excellent as always. Slow Foods did a great duty by creating a presidium for this magnificent product. They should definitely be rewarded for their labor.
Incredible. Great video!
Would love to try this salt someday
*I never even knew this existed.*
This is Africa
where everything began
Cheers from West Africa
🦅
This looks amazingly beautiful. They are so hard working
👏👏Good job Business insider-- Doing a better job than Kenyan media
This is not your typical salt. This must be potassium Chloride and not sodium Chloride (table salt) as we are used to. It's much better for your health, especially your heart as potassium is a very important electrolyte that more than 90% of people are deficient in. No wonder locals believe it has special effects, it really does. Everybody in western nations know it's better for you to substitute sodium chloride, and this salt (potassium chloride) made from reeds is just what we need. Nice video.
Am happy to see this as a Kenyan,great income earning potential for locals.
Same
"Is So Expensive" videos are always awsome to watch.
Am a Kenyan but never knew about this- Just found this article online and am like wait, this was being done this way. I learnt something new today.
since the reeds are burned, there will be hardly any organics left in the ash anyways; the same salt could be extracted by boiling the river water directly because the reeds pick the minerals from the river anyway, or maybe evaporating the water in open-air salterns
the additional flavors may come from alkaline substances or partially burned material in the ash but two products have to be analyzed separately to compare them
burning the reeds themselves will reduce fuel consumption and the area necessary for operation but without a steady supply of reeds (which they claimed they didn't have) it doesn't seem very efficient
The reeds do the job of concentrating the salt and minerals over time so you don’t have to boil so much water and fiddle with adding the mineral properties, so it’s efficient to get the taste they want. They are devising ways to get more reeds. I don’t like that they are burning so much and the complain of deforestation.
@@TheBooban i agree with reeds concentrating, you are right
but they might achieve the same by using open air salterns, just using evaporation
I am saying it is worth a try
@@TheBooban Also, I would imagine that the banana leaves that the salt is dried and hardened in are imparting their oils and juices as well. Banana leaves give a great flavor to foods cooked in them.
You will need lots of litres of water to boil. The reed is already concentrated.
With that long process they deserve more imo...very interesting ☺
I am kenyan and i legit have never heard of this. so interesting and i definitely have to try this once
finally some content from my lovely Kenya
I hope INSIDER also features much more of Souetheast Asia. There's just so much to discover there, but I also hope that they frame the topics consciously so that the value of the products remain (not like what happened to matcha)
Classical third world country mindset. Harvest and Don t plant
I know right! Southeast asia is rich in history and resources.
Asian people are the biggest ethnic group in the world. There is TONS of representation EVERYWHERE! Literally EVERYWHERE, just like white culture. Let’s let the black people get some shine in the world that we pioneered. Peace and love.
what happened to matcha?
@@swankyangelo8527 my phone is dead and I’m working out of here in the next month so I’m just waiting for the new one for my job
Business Insider: “why this special salt is so expensive”, “how this salt is so expensive”, “this salt is so expensive!”
Viewers: “OH I WANNA KNOW WHY THIS ONE IS SO EXPENSIVE!”
haha true
Because this idiots need 8 days to proceed it. :D
a big part that draws viewers is the culture (I think), though we do wanna know how the process goes that makes it expensive😆
Am kenyan living in kenya and am learning about this salt here.🙆🏾♂️
Necer heard of it
Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up for support
anyone who knows basic chemistry is cringing at the ash water heated in an aluminum pan
Extra minerals my friend 😑
I would really like to try some of that.
Kenya my motherland. Lots of love. 🇰🇪 🇰🇪
Super interesting!
Yet another type of salt that's only expensive because of its exotically-weird production process.
Better than paying for bottled tap water.
@@TheBooban true
@@TheBooban Not really, it is about the same.
I have this salt in my house. We use it for intense flavoring. (Not seasoning regular things like chicken) but for large pots of soup. One time our soup got bad and my mom put this salt in it. It fixed it instantly
Wow
How can you fix a bad soup with salt? Does salt kill the bacteria/mold/worms in the food? Can you fix rotting meat with this salt?
@@samwinchester7844 its the flavour lol
that s bs
@@samwinchester7844 i think he was a talking about the taste but i really don't think eating soup that went bad is safe.
Salute to you sir for the tradition you pass on!
This is so cool!!
Please make videos about why some things are so incredibly cheap, like for example regular salt or yeast (or whatever you want). I've never heard of most of the stuff in So Expensive, because, well, it's super-expensive
As a rule of thumb, the more expensive a product is, the more environmentally destructive it is. This is a good example: imagine how much river bank you have to plunder to get a ton of salt. They also note that muh climate change is destroying the ecosystem because... the locals are cutting down the trees - some of them used to produce this salt in open pans. The particle pollution must be off the charts.
@@ErikBramsen not true at all. palm oil is cheap, paper is cheap both incredibly destructive. Countries worth of forests and environments gone for their production. Bananas, gas , plastic! Come on bud
@@anni5385 Cheap compared to what and destructive compared to what? Do you suggest there's a less environmentally destructive way to produce oil and paper?
Because both paper and digestible oils could probably be made from hydrocarbon feedstock much cheaper than growing them -- we already did this with margarine
That way, we could get rid of all the slash-and-burn plantations in the Amazon and in the Indonesian rain forest, give the orangutans a break.
But somehow I doubt your commitment to saving the planet goes that far, does it?
@@ErikBramsen My only suggestion was that your "rule of thumb" is not always the case. In fact often an item or product being "cheap" causes a greater demand which is often supplied by countries in which environmental impact is not of great importance. Plastic is cheap, mass produced and thown away with no regard how many horrible issues do we have because of this cheap item? I have no qualms with you sir and was only trying to share my opinion that I feel your "rule" doesn't account for so much environmental destruction caused by cheap goods in high demand.
@@ErikBramsen I understand and respect your opinion sir and I hope you have a great day.
Bless these harvesters, long may they continue.
Great video, I had never even heard of this reed salt before. Not ridiculously expensive either, would be great to try
This is Africa
where everything began
Cheers from West Africa
🦅
So I assume it's just good old NaCl (because these reeds contain more of it than most other plants) mixed with CaO as well as K2O, MgO and their carbonates like any plant ash tends to contain? Something that could be produced industrially for dollars per metric ton and has no inherent value apart from it being a pain to produce?
well yea like pink salt but it is a local product so industries wouldn't really make it
They should check the salinity of the river water
There’s a premium to pay for backbreaking labor regardless of how unnecessary it is. Just look at the difference in price between mined diamonds and lab grown.
Yeah I guess so. Any decent food chemist worth his salt (sorry) could put those guys out of business within a day or two.
@@AllisterCaine but then the chemist couldn't sell his product as free trade cruelty free organic non gmo raw Reed salt 😉
Fascinating. There's always something new to learn. Something new to try. I'm so curious 🤔
Exactly, I didn't expect this one.
I mean a burned reed, turned into this incredible salt.
Am a Kenyan, yet this is so new to me and very amazing .I wish to taste this
Kumunyu kwa lukhayo👏👏👏👏👍👍👍👍👍
So early I beat the bots lol
How would we know ur not a bot?? Huh?? 😌
yes
Dude u have no life
There is a glaring piece of information that I was waiting to learn more about but which never came and also in my research could not uncover: where does the salt come from? Do the reeds absorb the salt from the river? Do the reeds create the salt through a chemical process?
I wondered that too.. not as scientific but where does the crystal form* or how
Does it attach lol
The river is likely salty, the reeds absorb the salt water as it grows. The salt most certainly comes from the water.
think of sugar cane...i suppose
@@davidkimani7660 lol. What? No! Not even remotely the same. Sugar cane makes the sugar. These reeds absorb the salt. Do you think sugar cane soil is sweet?
Very intresting loved it❣️❣️❣️💟
Really Great efforts, would like to try the salt🌸
This has me thinking of very ancient tribes who did similar being far from salty waters... Can you imagine what it must have been like to add salt to say freshly roasted venison for the first time.
Salt was used as a preservative. Not as an ingredient or garnish…. you didn’t put salt on fresh venison. You eat the fresh venison.
A very interesting episode
I am Kenyan and lived in Kenya all my life ,but didn’t even know such a salt existed
Very educational indeed!
This is how they made potash, aka potassium and this is basically that. Take ash, mix it with water, filter it and dry the water in a pot and voila, potash. More power to them for making a living out of selling it to chefs who can sell it as "tradition" because at end of day, it's just potassium salt.
Seems pretty chill way to make a living.
Considering the labor involved and the scarcity of the resource the bigger question is why is River Reed Salt so cheap.
Because salt is salt.
How does one think to do this in the first place? Lol
God bless business insider 🐇 Such a blessed channel! 🐒
Most of the "Why is so expensive" boils down to: ineffective methods and low demand due to better alternatives
@Sean Francis Waters Lancaster Alrosa, De Beers and Rio Tinto.
Buying at the locals for cheap and then the buyer sell it very expensive...that's the answer to your question..why the river reed salt is expensive..
Andrew looks like the younger brother of his own sons
I am so fascinated that I want to taste this salt
This is truly incredible! That is so much work.
I wish there was a way I could help people like this directly (without paying a middleman most ov the profit for the least amount ov work)
It's wild how a set of work gloves can change the lives of the folks in this video... something we take for granted, just buy a get of gloves online or from Walmart
There ain’t a wallmart in kenia, nor does package delivery work properly
Yeah… and a coffee maker and filter to drip water into ash without needing a human to ladle water by hand and slowly trickle it on ash for hours.
@@devtech4661 it's Kenya bro, and secondly thats my point. 😒
Lol...plastic gloves are clean?
@@devtech4661 Kenya not kenia
If this salt were from Japan, the price would've been 10s of times higher than what these guys are getting..
Because it's take lifetime to make salt? lol
$1 a tablespoon is already 10x expensive than table salt. so i would say it was priced right. only thing is they have to mass produce the reeds to have more extraction.
They have their bamboo salt. Whoch is very, very expensive
Fantastic Journalism!
Am Kenyan and didn't know we have such salt,will for sure try it out.
This is my country and i didn't even know about it.Good job
Do you have Super mall in your country?
Doesn't running water through ash dissolve potassium hydroxide too?
Just Basic salt
Yes. That's what was used to turn oils and fats into soap.
You missed my joke. Basic (lye) salt.
I love how they pray first before they start their day. May God Bless you more 🙏🏼
Wisdom behind the people enguniety is just out of this world.. God bless these families and the world needs to protect this art of salt extraction....
I wonder if this can also be done with trees that grow in salty environments
The reeds are actually grown in fresh water so they do not have much NaCl but instead, have more of other salts like Magnesium and Potassium.
This is not salt. It’s potash. So any plant that is high in potassium (very green, high cellulose) will yield potassium chloride.
@@martisbvk so basically we are being starved of many other mineral salts that we need? Other than what’s in table salt?
@@kiloton1920 If it's refined salt it's mostly sodium and some iodine. If it's sea salt it will have some calcium, magnesium and manganese. If it's salt from the mine the concentration of other minerals will be higher, some say it enhances the flavour. While increasing the potassium content of salt will make it healthier (until it goes over 20% then it's becoming unhealthy), potassium chloride has a bitter albeit salty flavour. Not sure whether you can consider it an improvement.
i just can't imagine how they discovered this way of salting.
This is Africa
where everything began
Cheers from West Africa
🦅
My guess would be that people there noticed that the river water was really salty, and so they tried various plants from the river to extract salt, and it just worked best with these river reeds.
It was really a genius and amazing discovery!
@@WillKrause21 it would be a lot easier to evaporate the river water then.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 the tree act as a filter and concentrate the salt inside it, if you dry the water there not much salt there
Excellent
Very interesting
It cost so much because people are dumb enough to pay alot for it.That type of reed with grown nearly anywhere .
Very interesting, but that aluminium pan getting scraped with a steel spoon 🥄 must somehow increase the aluminium content in the salt. Aluminium is highly toxic!
Good point.
Yeah and granted for example wood ash is primarily potassium carbonate and sodium carbonate (historically used for soap making), you would assume this ash would be similarly caustic. Given the amphoteric nature of aluminium, it would surely be reacting with a warm caustic solution.
Watching from kenya
Nice video.
The videos in this series always make me want to try the product. I wonder if the taste of the river reed salt also is a bit smokey? No one mentions it.
Probably because it isn't.
*I pray that everyone who is watching this masterpiece becomes really happy and successful in life!*
Better give me your money I will be happy 😊
Big respect for harvesting substainable 😀👍
Any Kenyan here?So proud to watch.