Salt: A World History

[Emerald]

I've been thinking about salt too, and stocking up.

I remember reading a book as a kid, an end-of-the-world type book where everything was destroyed, and finding a salt flat was a big big deal for the characters.

I'll bet it was "Alas, Babylon" I can't remember who wrote it but I still have the book, we had to read it for school and I loved it so much I stole it!
A man ends up with family and after the bombs go up they and their comunity find themselves isolated and alone.. they boat down to a big cove with salt and crabs to get salt to cure their meats with. If I remember correctly they were in Florida.

 

[k0xxx]

If you go to one of the big box stores, like Sam's Club, you can usually find salt in a 25 pond bag for the price of just 3 or 4 regular boxes. Last month at Sam's the cost for 25 pounds was only $3.88.

 

[Wifezilla]

I would love to get a 25# of Celtic sea salt, but you can't get that for $3.88 Since I need to go to Sam's anyway, I will get a big bag of the processed stuff and then get my Celtic sea salt a little at a time as the budget allows.

 

[~gd]

If you go to one of the big box stores, like Sam's Club, you can usually find salt in a 25 pond bag for the price of just 3 or 4 regular boxes. Last month at Sam's the cost for 25 pounds was only $3.88.

If you go that way be sure to get the salt meant to be used in a water softener not that sold for deicer. Deicer salt may not be safe for food uses, but the water softerer salt will be.

 

[Wifezilla]

The Sam's salt is food grade and sold near the huge bags of flour and baking soda

Good thing to keep in mind though. Deicer usually has other stuff added in it. If the water softener says just salt it could be used in a pinch.

 

[~gd]

I would love to get a 25# of Celtic sea salt, but you can't get that for $3.88 Since I need to go to Sam's anyway, I will get a big bag of the processed stuff and then get my Celtic sea salt a little at a time as the budget allows.

What is the deal with Celtic sea salt? I know sea salt has inpurities (micro minerals) not found in proessed salt, but what is special about Celtric salt?

 

[Wifezilla]

First of all, flavor and second of all, trace minerals.

"Unrefined sea salt

* Natural salt is a prime condiment that stimulates salivation and helps to balance and replenish all of the body's electrolytes.
* The natural iodine in these salts protects against radiation, atomic fallout, and many other pollutants.
* Unrefined sea salt supplies all 92 vital trace minerals, thereby promoting optimum biological function and cellular maintenance:
o Here is a partial list of the minerals found in unrefined salt and their function in human metabolism:
+ Sodium: Essential to digestion and metabolism, regulates body fluids, nerve and muscular functions.
+ Chlorine: Essential component of human body fluids.
+ Calcium: Needed for bone mineralization.
+ Magnesium: Dissipates sodium excess, forms and hardens bones, ensures mental development and sharpens intelligence, promotes assimilation of carbohydrates, assures metabolism of vitamin C and calcium, retards the aging process and dissolves kidney stones.
+ Sulfur: Controls energy transfer in tissue, bone and cartilage cells, essential for protein compounds.
+ Silicon: Needed in carbon metabolism and for skin and hair balance.
+ Iodine: Vital for energy production and mental development, ensures production of thyroid hormones, needed for strong auto-defense mechanism (lymphatic system).
+ Bromine: In magnesium bromide form, a nervous system regulator and restorer, vital for pituitary hormonal function.
+ Phosphorus: Essential for biochemical synthesis and nerve cell functions related to the brain, constituent of phosphoproteins, nucleoproteins and phospholipids.
+ Vanadium: Of greater value for tooth bone calcification than fluoride, tones cardiac and nervous systems, reduces cholesterol, regulates phospholipids in blood, and a catalyst for the oxidation of many biological substances.

Refined table salt

* Inorganic sodium chloride upsets your fluid balance and constantly overburdens your elimination systems, which can impair your health.
* When your body tries to isolate the overdose of refined salt you typically expose it to, water molecules must surround the sodium chloride molecules to break them up into sodium and chloride ions in order to help your body neutralize them. To accomplish this, water is taken from your cells, and you have to sacrifice the water stored in your cells in order to neutralize the unnatural sodium chloride.
o This results in dehydrated cells that die prematurely.
* Refined table salt contains added iodine, which may indeed have helped eliminate the incidence of endemic goiter, but has conversely increased the incidence of hypothyroidism.
* Refined table salt lacks all trace minerals.
* Refined salt contains anticaking agents such as ferrocyanide, yellow prussiate of soda, tricalcium phosphate, alumine-calcium silicate, sodium aluminosilicate. All work by preventing the salt from mixing with water, both inside the box and inside the human body. This prevents the salt from doing one of its important functions in the organism: regulating hydration.

The problem of excess salt in the diet
Salt and Water

* Fish survive by excreting large amounts of salt through their gills. Humans excrete salt through their kidneys. But there is only so much salt that can be urinated away, and salt-sensitive individuals excrete less sodium than normal.
* If the body can't reduce the salt, the next best way to hit the right level is to increase the amount of water. This causes the body's extremities to swell up.
* If you're not drinking enough water, the body finds the extra water it needs by robbing its own cells. In extreme cases, neurons shrink and begin to stretch; brain and spinal membranes may begin hemorrhaging. The brain shrinks. Too high a concentration of salt in the body can lead to irritability, muscle twitching, seizures, brain damage, coma, and sometimes death. Usually, though, the results aren't quite so drastic.
o Dr. Myron Weinberger, an Indiana University medical school professor who authored the salt sensitivity study, says that given the "horrendous excess of salt that we end up with every day," some individuals can't get rid of it all, especially those born with subtle kidney problems that may go undiagnosed. Part of the problem is the chemical attraction between sodium and water.
* Hypertension
o High levels of sodium in the diet combined with low water consumption leads to hypertension. "Every grain of salt that is retained in the body carries with it 20 times its weight in water which increases the (amount of) fluid in circulation," Weinberger said. "If you think of the blood vessels as piping, as you push more fluid in them, then the pressure goes up.""

Even if you don't buy in to the health aspect, did I mention the flavor???

 

[k0xxx]

We have 50# of Celtic Sea Salt. It was considerable more, but I don't remember how much as it's been a while since it was ordered (somewhere in the $50 range, I believe).

We also have 50# of generic Sea Salt (iodine added), it was less than the Celtic, but still about $20 for 50 pounds.

We use the Celtic Sea Salt as table salt, and the generic for cooking. The regular granulated salt is for meat preserving, etc.

ETA: We purchased the Sea Salt from Country Life Natural Foods, but the Celtic came from another source a couple of years ago.

 

[~gd]

First of all, flavor and second of all, trace minerals.

"Unrefined sea salt

* Natural salt is a prime condiment that stimulates salivation and helps to balance and replenish all of the body's electrolytes.
* The natural iodine in these salts protects against radiation, atomic fallout, and many other pollutants.
* Unrefined sea salt supplies all 92 vital trace minerals, thereby promoting optimum biological function and cellular maintenance:
o Here is a partial list of the minerals found in unrefined salt and their function in human metabolism:
+ Sodium: Essential to digestion and metabolism, regulates body fluids, nerve and muscular functions.
+ Chlorine: Essential component of human body fluids.
+ Calcium: Needed for bone mineralization.
+ Magnesium: Dissipates sodium excess, forms and hardens bones, ensures mental development and sharpens intelligence, promotes assimilation of carbohydrates, assures metabolism of vitamin C and calcium, retards the aging process and dissolves kidney stones.
+ Sulfur: Controls energy transfer in tissue, bone and cartilage cells, essential for protein compounds.
+ Silicon: Needed in carbon metabolism and for skin and hair balance.
+ Iodine: Vital for energy production and mental development, ensures production of thyroid hormones, needed for strong auto-defense mechanism (lymphatic system).
+ Bromine: In magnesium bromide form, a nervous system regulator and restorer, vital for pituitary hormonal function.
+ Phosphorus: Essential for biochemical synthesis and nerve cell functions related to the brain, constituent of phosphoproteins, nucleoproteins and phospholipids.
+ Vanadium: Of greater value for tooth bone calcification than fluoride, tones cardiac and nervous systems, reduces cholesterol, regulates phospholipids in blood, and a catalyst for the oxidation of many biological substances.

Refined table salt

* Inorganic sodium chloride upsets your fluid balance and constantly overburdens your elimination systems, which can impair your health.
* When your body tries to isolate the overdose of refined salt you typically expose it to, water molecules must surround the sodium chloride molecules to break them up into sodium and chloride ions in order to help your body neutralize them. To accomplish this, water is taken from your cells, and you have to sacrifice the water stored in your cells in order to neutralize the unnatural sodium chloride.
o This results in dehydrated cells that die prematurely.
* Refined table salt contains added iodine, which may indeed have helped eliminate the incidence of endemic goiter, but has conversely increased the incidence of hypothyroidism.
* Refined table salt lacks all trace minerals.
* Refined salt contains anticaking agents such as ferrocyanide, yellow prussiate of soda, tricalcium phosphate, alumine-calcium silicate, sodium aluminosilicate. All work by preventing the salt from mixing with water, both inside the box and inside the human body. This prevents the salt from doing one of its important functions in the organism: regulating hydration.

The problem of excess salt in the diet
Salt and Water

* Fish survive by excreting large amounts of salt through their gills. Humans excrete salt through their kidneys. But there is only so much salt that can be urinated away, and salt-sensitive individuals excrete less sodium than normal.
* If the body can't reduce the salt, the next best way to hit the right level is to increase the amount of water. This causes the body's extremities to swell up.
* If you're not drinking enough water, the body finds the extra water it needs by robbing its own cells. In extreme cases, neurons shrink and begin to stretch; brain and spinal membranes may begin hemorrhaging. The brain shrinks. Too high a concentration of salt in the body can lead to irritability, muscle twitching, seizures, brain damage, coma, and sometimes death. Usually, though, the results aren't quite so drastic.
o Dr. Myron Weinberger, an Indiana University medical school professor who authored the salt sensitivity study, says that given the "horrendous excess of salt that we end up with every day," some individuals can't get rid of it all, especially those born with subtle kidney problems that may go undiagnosed. Part of the problem is the chemical attraction between sodium and water.
* Hypertension
o High levels of sodium in the diet combined with low water consumption leads to hypertension. "Every grain of salt that is retained in the body carries with it 20 times its weight in water which increases the (amount of) fluid in circulation," Weinberger said. "If you think of the blood vessels as piping, as you push more fluid in them, then the pressure goes up.""

Even if you don't buy in to the health aspect, did I mention the flavor???

Well I granted the benefits of the micro minerals up front hoping to avoid the flood of bad Chemistry that you delivered. And No I won't debate any of it with you, Done that before and it is just a waste of time. I would point out that you jumped to many conclusions about refined salt, not all have iodine or anticaking agents added (pickling salt has neither)
I'll ask again what is special about salt from the Celtic Sea? Are the Celts peeing in it or what?

 

[ORChick]

Personally, I don't use much salt at all in my cooking; I consider many things *over salted* that others would add salt to. I don't buy the *sea salt tastes better* theory, just because I don't think any salt tastes good. If I can taste it its too much. I do generally use pickling salt when I do use salt; it is cheap, readily available, and doesn't have the additives of table salt. I have several pounds of the pickling salt, but cannot see spending the, IMO, excessive amounts asked for sea salt.
Besides, ALL salt is sea salt; just some of it has been out of the sea for a longer time (And yes, I know that the issue is more *refined* vs *unrefined*)