Table salt

Table Salt is the common name of the salt composed of sodium (Na) and Chlorine (Cl), which has the chemical name sodium chloride. The common name refers to its use as a condiment, however, people do not realize that most daily food has a lot of salt in it. When having these foods with a good amount of salt in them, people add more salt. This creates serious health problems like increasing your blood pressure and your risk of a heart attack or stroke. It is not just used for seasoning food but has multiple other uses. Salt is used for cleaning household items, helping your body, or eliminating odor. However, what salt is mostly used for is in agricultural things. That is not how it has always been though. Salt has been primarily used for preserving and seasoning food. Salt used to be a very big production for this. Producing salt now is done with very large machines and some miners. There are multiple methods but only a few are mostly used. Salt is a bigger deal in people's lives than people think. Salt has been used and has been a huge part of society for a really long time.

History

Salt has been apart of peoples lives for a really long time. It was used way before Christ's time. In that time, Jewish people included salt in a lot of things. One of those were when they used it on the Sabbath to dip their bread in for communion. For one instance in the Bible, Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt. In both the New and Old Testaments, covenants were sealed with salt. Therefore, salvation came from the word salt. Salt is used in purifying rituals. A small taste of salt was placed on a baby's lip at their baptism. Also, in the Bible it shares that Jesus called his disciples "the Salt of the Earth". Another example is of Leonardo DaVinci's painting of "The Last Supper", Judas is shown spilling a bowl of salt which was a sign of bad luck. Even now, it is still a tradition to throw a pinch of salt over their left shoulder. Although today people do it for good luck, but it was originally done if they spill a bowl of salt to ward off any demons that may be lurking behind them.

Prior to industrialization, it was extremely expensive and laboring to harvest the mass quantities of salt that was necessary for food preservation and seasoning. This made salt an extremely valuable commodity. Entire economies were based on salt production and trade. Salt was used as currency in ancient Rome, and the roots of the words "soldier" and "salary" can be traced to Latin words related to giving or receiving salt. Salt production also played a significant role in early America. The Massachusetts Bay Colony held the first patent to produce salt in the colonies and continued to produce it for the next two hundred years. The Erie Canal was opened primarily to make salt transportation easier, and during the Civil War, the Union captured significant Confederate saltworks and created a temporary salt shortage in the Confederate states. It continues to be important to the economies of many states, including Ohio, Louisiana and Texas.

Production

There are three methods in ways to produce salt. They are solar evaporation, rock salt mining, and vacuum evaporation method. The solar evaporation method is the oldest method of salt production. This method has been used ever since salt crystals were first noticed in trapped pools of sea water. However, this method can only really be used in warm climates where the evaporation rate exceeds the precipitation rate and steady prevailing winds occur. The solar salt production is capturing salt water in shallow ponds where the sun evaporates most of the water. The concentrated brine precipitates the salt which is then gathered by mechanical harvesting machines. Any impurities that may be present in the brine are drained and discarded prior to harvesting. During the salt-making season of four to five months, brine flows continuously through these ponds. This is a saturated brine solution, containing as much salt as it can hold, so pure salt crystallizes out of the solution as the water evaporates. Natural chemical impurities are returned to the salt water source.

The second oldest method of producing salt is underground mining. This is probably the most dramatic method of gathering salt. Large machines travel through large cave-like passageways performing various operations. Salt mines are among the safest and most comfortable mines to work in. While mine temperatures vary with depth, the average temperature remains about seventy degrees Fahrenheit year round. To enter a salt mine, miners go down a shaft from the Earth’s surface to the salt bed. There are two shafts – one for personnel and one to lower materials and equipment into the mine and bringing the mined rock salt to the surface. The shafts also are used to deliver a constant supply of fresh air to the miners while they work hundreds to thousands of feet below the surface. Most mine shafts are lined with a concrete wall called a shaft liner. The salt may appear in veins, as does coal, or in domes. Usually forty-five to sixty-five percent of the salt is removed. Small holes are drilled into the salt wall to a depth of ten or more feet and explosives are loaded into the drilled holes. The explosives are set off electrically. Several hundred to several thousand tons of rock salt are blasted and fall onto the mine floor. Equipment is used to load and haul the salt to machines that crush and feed the salt onto a conveyor belt. The lumps are conveyed to a series of stations for crushing and additional sizing of the lumps. The salt is then placed in a storage bin to await going up to the surface. When separated, each size is conveyed to its individual storage bin to await packaging for shipment or to be loaded as bulk salt into railroad cars, trucks, or lake boats for shipment to customers.

Health Issues

Someone adding salt to an already salty dish.

When thinking of salt, most people in America think of it as a compliment to food. Salt has now become a part of human's and animal's diet. They use it for food seasoning and preservation. It is almost always at the table beside the pepper shaker. There are multiple different kinds of edible salt then just table salt. For example there is Kosher Salt, Sel Gris, Gros Sel, Fake Sale Fleur de Sel, Hawaiian Sea Salt, Smoked Salt, Seasoned Salt, and Himalayan Salt which can also be used for spa treatments and other things. Although, people may be getting a little too attached to salt. Almost all food contains salt because of the way it's made. Other foods contain a lot more salt than people think. Some foods are very high in salt and a common mistake people make is adding salt on top before they put it in their mouth to eat. This can cause serious damage in multiple different ways. One way is that the body gets addicted to the salt and adapts, to the point that all of their food needs to be salty. Another way it is damaging is that salt increases blood pressure. This may put someone at risk of having a stroke or heart disease.

Some foods that are high in salt that are commonly eaten are bacon, cheese, ham, olives, pickles, smoked meat/fish, soy sauce, certain kinds of bread, pasta sauces, pizza, soup, ready meals, sandwiches, sausage, and most breakfast cereals. All of these foods have an excess amount of salt. First people need to realize that salt is in everyday foods and then start to cut back. Looking at the nutritional facts is a key part to realize how much of that food you can eat if any. Babies that are a year to three years old should have only two grams of salt a day, four to six years only three grams, seven to ten only five grams, and eleven years old and older should only consume at most, six grams of salt each day. This is drastically different from what society is today. If a person were to eat what they do normally and record how much salt they eat a day, it is a lot more than six grams. This is a reason why people need to change and make their diet more healthy.

Uses

A woman cleaning out her nose with a neti pot containing a salt water solution.

Most people are clueless to the fact that salt is used as an agricultural resource. Only one percent of salt is used as table salt in the United States. Forty percent of it is used in the chemical industry. Another forty percent is used as a de-icer on roads during the winter season. The rest is used in multiple ways like manufacturing rubber, other goods, and also agriculturally. Salt can be used in the kitchen, it can be used for personal care, different ways just around the house, it can be used when cleaning certain items, and it can be used for cleaning laundry.

Salt can also be used around the house other than on the dinner table. Salt can be used as a stain remover or cleaner. For example cleaning coffee pots, vases, or cleaning the floor if an egg breaks on it. It can also help remove dust and wipe out wine stains. Salt can eliminate odor or freshen the air. For example, it can dispose the odor of fish or the odor on someone's cutting board, and it can also help in the aid of freshening the air like an air freshener. Salt is used to help someone if they have a cold or achy body. For example is someone is sick with a sore throat, they can gargle water, or if a stuffy nose, pouring salt water through one nostril and out the other. Another salt, called Epson salt is used for an aching body or smelly feet by soaking in a water bath. It can also be used to chill a bottle of wine/champagne, patch a small hole in the wall (i.e. a nail hole), or be used for fun activities like painting or making play dough/sculptures.