On Buying Salt

I've been using the same box of table salt forever, and it's finally running low. But at the store, I noticed you could get it with or without iodine. I had thought iodine was added to all table salt.

Just out of curiosity, I looked at the ingredients lists. The iodized salt had several ingredients. The other had only salt. So then I decided I should do some research before deciding.

First I looked at which salt I currently have: non-iodized. Huh.

Of course everyone says sea salt is healthier because it still has trace amounts of multiple nutrients in it. Or maybe sea salt is a little scary because it has microplastics and maybe pollutants in it, unless you get Himalayan sea salt, from ancient pre-plastic, pre-pollution oceans.

On table salt: "During manufacturing it is heated to around 1200 degrees Fahrenheit and treated with caustic soda to remove other minerals. Anti-caking agents, like aluminum hydroxide, are then added to improve how it pours." - Health Ambition

"Although refined table salt is produced from sea salt it is so highly processed that the end product leaves it alarmingly void of its natural nutrients. The naturally-occurring minerals, essential to our health are stripped from the harvested sea salt. Aluminum and other additives are used to dry the salt. The salt is then processed under such extreme heat that its chemical structure is altered. To replace the stripped iodine, potassium iodide is added to make the salt “iodized.” Stabilizers are added and the substance is bleached white." - Farmers' Almanac

Interestingly, health.com says that if you need an exact measurement or need the salt to dissolve, then use table salt because sea salt comes in bigger crystals that do not dissolve as well and that have bigger spaces between them meaning you'll get a different amount than you're used to.

Susannah Chen on Lifehacker recommends Diamond Crystal Kosher salt (but not Morton Kosher salt) for an all-purpose salt; just use twice as much of it by volume (the same amount by weight) for recipes. But one of her commenters says kosher salt has additives like table salt does, so "[w]hen a recipe calls for kosher salt, I use coarse sea salt instead—similar size & texture. Never had a problem with it. For things like eggs, I use fine sea salt which dissolves well. I use this salt also for most things."

So apparently there's such a thing as fine sea salt which might dissolve well and measure like table salt.

But Authority Nutrition says "The problem with heavily ground salt is that it can clump together. For this reason, various substances called anti-caking agents are added so that it flows freely." And one of their commenters advises "If you're happy to pay 20 times the price to get iron-tainted rock salt [Himalayan salt], then OK, it's worth it for the flavour."

So, don't anti-caking agents need to appear in the ingredients list? If so, why does non-iodized salt not need them (and mine is still fine after all this time) even though it is finely ground?

So here's all I feel that I really know now:
* Table salt is highly refined.
* Iodine fights hypothyroidism (which runs in my family) and is found in iodized salt and unrefined salt.
* Sea salt still has some trace minerals in it.
* Different kinds of salt have different sized crystals and maybe even differently shaped crystals; this affects volume-based measuring.
* Some people can taste a difference among different salts, and they don't all love the "metallic" sea salts more.

I hardly use added salt in my cooking, so it probably doesn't matter what I get. But I'm not sure I really need my salt bleached for me.

Any opinions?