The Power of SALT

Salt is an essential mineral for much of the life on this planet and it’s actually the only mineral we need to consume on a regular basis to maintain good health.

Where does salt come from?

Without getting too technical, all salt comes from the sea floor. Think of our oceans as huge mixing pots, on the surface of our planet we have rivers that constantly feed our oceans vast amounts of weathered debris that have too many or too little ions. While at the bottom of our oceans we have huge fields of volcanoes that produce mostly hydrogen and chloride ions. Through various biological processes, all the dissolved materials from the river and volcanoes are used up except for sodium and chloride ions.

Over time, the concentration of sodium and chloride become so great that they form a solid precipitate called sodium chloride (halite) in the water. When you eat something containing salt, what instantly happens is that your body separates the sodium chloride into sodium and chloride.

Salt for Food

What did people use to preserve their food before modern day refrigeration? SALT! Salt is so essential to cooking that you will rarely find a kitchen without a healthy supply of it on hand at all times. Adding salt to water increases its boiling temperature thus reducing the cooking time, it makes peeling hard boiled eggs an easier task, deodorizes closed containers and kitchen surfaces, kill and inhibit mold and bacteria from forming on food. Salt is also used for seasoning dishes and even used by chefs the world over to convert their pots and pans into temporary non-stick ones for cooking!

Salt in everyday life

We don’t just eat salt, we also use it to improve our lifestyle. Salt is put on roads in the winter to dissolve ice by decreasing its freezing point, used as a deodorant for various industrial processes and used to stop grease fires dead in their tracks. It’s used heavily as an essential mineral within many heat exchangers (coolants), combining waste products together, turning toxic materials into benign ones and even as a base substance in the process of manufacturing glass, paper, textiles and glazes. Many of us even have water conditioners in our homes that use salt to turn hard water into soft.

Salt and our health

Salt has been used for eons to clean wounds and prevent infection, reduce the likeliness of developing hypothermia, disinfecting our water and for people suffering from lung conditions, clear their air pathways. Excess or lack is also believed to be a risk factor for developing hypertension, cardiovascular disease and a host of other ailments. Excess salt intake causes our bodies to hold more water, thus leading towards a rounded undefined look - it’s also thought to be a big player in the epidemic of obesity ravaging our cultures.

The Bottom Line

Salt is import for all of us, lets give it the respect it deserves and stop abusing it.