You guys keep talking about taste difference and I agree that plain old unprocessed sea salt tastes better than the stuff in a container with a little girl and umbrella. I can't see a difference between plain sea salt and kosher salt. That is exactly why I use sea salt that I buy in bulk at the Food Bowl in Berkeley. I buy all my herbs and spices in bulk. I bag up a small bag of something for 60 cents that you pay about $3.75 for at the super market. I bought some arrow root and some other white powder herb the other day. Since the trip home is about 40 miles, I decided to hide the stuff under the seat of my 300TDT in case I got pulled over by the CHP for a tail light out or something. I figured it would save me a night in jail and embarrassment For the trooper when the lab came back with the results of his drug bust having a street value of 61 cents.
As far as salmonella goes, my mother has been stuffing turkeys for over 50 years without incident. I think that the deaths of some guests over the years shortly after Thanksgiving were purely coincidental. Seriously I think that if you wash and clean poultry and implements properly there should be no problem. Contamination causes the problems. As an example mayonaise is sppposed to be deadly if it is not kept above a certain cold storage temp once it is opened. I have a friend in her late 30s who has always kept her opened mayonaise in a kitchen cabinet. She never makes the mistakes people do of not washing hands, licking fingers, etc.
Peter