Expert Warns People Who Buy Salt From Costco — It Could Be Why You’re Tired All the Time

During the 18th century, travellers scrambling the French Alps were left horrified by the petrifying sight of “cretins.” Big Think describes, cretins referred to the discarded humans with misshapen, dwarf-sized, and distorted bodies devoid of all activity, akin to “living animals.” Cretin, the Latin term for “chalk” was a description of their pale, sombre appearance which was because of a violet-hued mineral that the Alps people didn’t know about. A century later, a French chemist was extracting sodium and potassium salts to make gunpowder when he noticed purple fumes spiralling from seaweed ash mixed with sulphuric acid, per NIH. His discovery ended up curing cretinism, and the purplish chemical element he discovered in his laboratory was "iodine."

Today, most of the iodine sits on the beds of salty seas and oceans and is carried away to crops via rivulets and streams. However, the amount these watercourses carry is not always sufficient for the bodily needs of humans. That’s why we have table salt. Those salt-and-pepper sprinklers are on every dining table, not just for style. The salt is supposed to fulfil the iodine supply in the human body. Costco’s salt, however, doesn’t accomplish this purpose. One Costco customer, Karolina Ochoa (@lactationhub), an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, recently shared a video expressing her disappointment after realizing that Costco’s salt is not iodized.

“This salt does not supply iodide, a necessary nutrient,” said Ochoa from Redlands, California, who often shares content related to pregnancy, breastfeeding, and pumping. The video shows her strolling through the aisles of a Costco store, her family members rolling the shopping cart. They approach the aisles stocked with salts. At first, they arrive at a shelf lined with red-colored packs of Diamond Crystal kosher salt flakes. “This salt does not supply iodine, a necessary nutrient,” the salt pack reads. The next item Ochoa picks up is a blue-and-white bottle of Kirkland sea salt. This bottle reads the same message as advertised on the kosher salt pack. The woman zooms the camera to clearly show this message to the viewers.

Next, the camera pans to a shelf provisioned with maroon-and-pink jars of Kirkland pink salt. In what turned out to be a shocking revelation, she pointed at the packaging of the jar to show that this, too, contained the same message. Another salt product from Costco displayed the same message. Ochoa was obviously stunned. “If you get your salt at Costco and your thyroid is going crazy and you’re tired all the time, it could be an iodine deficiency,” she wrote in the overlay text of the video to warn her viewers.

“Just realized Costco doesn’t carry a single iodized salt - not even their Kirkland brand! With iodine deficiency making a comeback, you’d think they would at least offer the option. Sea salt, Himalayan salt, kosher salt… but no iodized table salt in sight,” the TikTok user said in the caption. She urged her viewers to switch to another retailer for their salt supply. “If you’re having thyroid issues like hypothyroidism and shop at Costco, here’s your clue. You might need to grab your iodized salt elsewhere!”

The video instilled a new fear in many. However, others were quick to step up to Costco’s defense, saying that the products she showed were table salt and not iodized salt, which is the one containing iodine. “It’s not a Costco issue. What’s wrong with regular salt? Why are we buying fancy salt?” commented @ldk. @alwayspizzaparty said, “This isn’t a Costco thing. Only iodized salt has iodine.” @hmic wrote, “Because you’re looking for table salt, not cooking salt, yes there’s a difference.”

You can follow Karolina Ochoa (@lactationhub) on TikTok for breastfeeding, pumping, and lactation tips.