In today's health conscience world, we like to believe we are so well educated on the things we consume to keep us healthy. We put so much emphasis on sugar, fat, and carbohydrates that we often ignore one of the most basic needs of the human body. Salt is vital to our day to day life, yet it is also deadly if not consumed in the right amounts. Like everything else in life, salt is a balancing act, and to often we ignore the importance of this strange little rock crystal. Salt is needed by almost all living things. Salt is the key to your body regulating it's fluid levels, and salt is the mineral that your brain uses to send electrical signals to your body.
Historians disagree on the dates that man first started using salt. This date obviously predates written history. With it being so vital and such a basic instinctual need, I think it's safe to say that man has always being using salt. The most common and oldest form of salt production is the simple technique of evaporation. Today salt is mined in huge underground caverns. While most people use salt in their cooking or sprinkle a salt shaker over their plate, refrigeration has changed the amount of importance we place on salt. We've only had refrigeration for roughly a hundred and twenty five years or so, but it's been in place long enough that we can't remember what we did before we had the luxury of refrigerators. Before refrigeration the only way to make meat last more than a few days was to salt it. There are a couple of ways to salt meat. You can simply make a coating of salt on the meat or put it in briny water to absorb the salt. Salt was well known as a necessity because it was used daily to preserve food. It is well known that salt was once a very important commodity in trading. At one time in history trading for as must as the equal weight of gold. Another interesting note about the history of salt is the word salad is from Roman times and means salted vegetables. The Romans also had the word "salarium" which was the salt that was used to pay soldiers. Yes, you guessed it, that's where we get the word salary. Unfortunately, like so many things in our modern world the many uses of salt are done at a factory instead of your home. We don't see the salt going into the daily things in our lives so we don't understand it's importance.
These days salt has a bad reputation. We blame salt for strokes, high blood pressure, and even neurological problems. It's not that salt is bad for us, it's the fact that we are no longer aware of it in our food supply. I recently learned the hard way that a single can of cola has ninety percent of your daily needs for salt. Definitely something to think about when you open your third cola before noon. How much salt do you get in the fast food drive through lane? That's a guessing game. Like everything else in life, to much of a good thing can be bad for you. We can't live without salt but we also can't indulge in it without limits. We take for granted the important roll salt plays in our daily life. Sounds like salt is the poster child for all that is wrong with people today. We overindulge in a good thing and give no regards to it's consequences. We think we are so advanced that we don't have to account for our need of such a base thing. We would do well to not think so highly of ourselves that we don't consider some of the most simple things like water and salt are more important for long life than money and notoriety. Could it be that our vast intelligence is insignificant compared to our primal needs for a crystallized mineral? The more likely answer is we should use our intelligence to balance our basic needs instead of our greedy, selfish ways.
Have a great day and I hope you taste a little salt in your food today.
