What is Salt and Why Do We Need It in Our Diet?
Luckily for us salt is one of the most common minerals on
Earth and is formed mainly from sodium chloride. It is a crystalline solid and
is white, light grey or pale pink in colour. It is an essential part of the
diet for all humans and animals, as the sodium and chloride ions are necessary
for our survival.
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| Sea Salt |
It plays an important part in the regulation of the fluid
balance of the body. Salt cravings can
be caused by a deficiency of sodium chloride or by a lack of other trace
minerals. What we use on our tables
today is produced in several different forms, in unrefined forms like sea salt
or refined like table and iodized salt.
It is also an important preservative and is used extensively to preserve
food. The flavour is one of the basic
tastes, making it one of the oldest and most commonly used seasoning. In the Western world traditionally there are
four taste sensations: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. We lose salt from our bodies through sweating
and excretion, so we constantly need to replace what we lose, especially in
very hot weather.
Health Problems Associated with Salt
However vital salt is to us, having too much in your diet
can cause you to experience health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart
disease and an increased risk of stroke.
Having too much in your diet can also cause water retention. Fully grown
adults should eat no more than 6g a day, which is approximately a teaspoonful.
And in the UK alone, reducing the average daily intake by adults could prevent
around 17500 premature deaths a year. Children
and babies need a lot less than this. A
baby only needs less than 1g a day up until it is around a year old. Breast milk and infant formula contain the
right levels, but it is important not to add it to baby’s food when they start
eating solids and to not give them processed foods that are not specifically
made for infants. Another benefit of reducing your salt intake is that you
might begin to notice a broader range of flavours in your food.
Much of what we consume is hidden in the food that we eat,
so it is not just the salt that we add to our food that is the problem. Foods that have a high salt content are
processed foods, bread, cereals, salty snacks and foods that have been canned
in brine or preserved in salt. They
should be avoided or cut down on where possible and replaced with fresh,
home-cooked meals.
Iodine is also commonly added to salt, especially in inland
areas where there is little iodine in the soil for the crops to absorb. A lack of iodine in the diet can lead to
problems with the thyroid gland in the neck known as goitre. In the United Kingdom this was commonly known
as ‘Derbyshire Neck’ as it was a condition particularly prevalent among the
poorer sections of society in Derbyshire, particularly young women of child bearing
age, a century or so ago.
History of Salt
It is believed that we first started adding it to our food
when our early ancestors started cultivating crops in about 10,000 BC and
started to eat less meat. Earlier,
prehistoric hunter gatherers had derived all the sodium that they needed from
the large amounts of meat and fish that they ate. They also discovered that you could use it to
preserve food, so that they could store it at times when food was plentiful to
be used when the food supplies were running low.
Early civilisations learned that they could obtain it from
dried out lakes, by boiling or evaporating sea water or mining in areas where
solid salt forms in the ground. However,
supplies remained scarce until modern times and for most of recorded history it
was regarded as a rare and valuable commodity, due to the expense of extracting
it and then conveying it overland or by sea.
In Iran in 2005 a group of salt mummies were discovered in ancient salt
mines. These were bodies of workers who
had perished in the mines around 1700 years ago and whose bodies had been
naturally preserved by the salt.
Taxes on salt were introduced by the ancient Chinese and there were times when the revenues raised made up half of the Chinese Empire’s tax revenues. The Great Wall of China would probably never have been built without this tax! The Romans also taxed it and one of the famous Roman roads the ‘Via Salaria’ or salt road was built to transport it. The infamous French salt tax known as the ‘Gabelle’ was hugely unpopular with the French people. It was first imposed in 1286 by King Philip IV and was not repealed until 1790. There was also a long history of taxing it in India and the huge increase of this tax by the British which led to it becoming unaffordable for a lot of Indians was one of the issues that flared up and helped pave the way to Indian Independence.
It is said that in ancient times, when an enemy was
conquered, the victorious army would sow it into their fields so that they
would not be able to grow their crops.
The most well known example is the Romans ploughing it into the soil
after they conquered Carthage in 146 BC, although this is disputed as it is not
mentioned in ancient texts but is mentioned by the 19th century
German historian Ferdinand Gregorovius.
We still commonly use the term ‘above the salt’, which originated
in the Middle Ages when a salt cellar was placed on the dining table and the
important people of the household were seated above it and the lesser folk and
servants were seated on the other side.
The fact that it was expensive was shown by the fact that these salt
cellars in prosperous households were often quite large, very ornate and made
of precious metals. Other phrases that
we still use are ‘salt of the earth’ denoting a person who is very worthy which
reflects how precious it used to be. “Taken with a pinch of salt’ means that
what has been said should not be taken too seriously and ‘worth one’s salt’ harks
back to the custom of Roman Legionnaires receiving some of their wages in the
form of salt.
Spilling salt is still thought to signify bad luck and that
it can only be countered by tossing some of what you have spilled over your
left shoulder. It has to be the left
shoulder, because that is where the devil sits. Toss it over your right
shoulder and you will be throwing it into the eyes of your guardian angel. This belief may have come from the story that
Judas overturned a salt cellar at the Last Supper and spilling some of the
precious condiment over the table. It also used to be believed that salt, along
with earth and fire could protect you from demons. It used to be placed in baby’s cots to keep
them safe and a plate of salt would be placed on the breast of someone who had
just died to prevent the devil from taking their soul.
Dangers of Salt to the Environment
Too much is toxic to many plants and soil that contains too
much salt is not suitable for agriculture and tends to be very
unproductive. Natural salt lakes tend to
be very dry and arid areas. Worryingly,
salt sterilizing the soil in regions that are normally fertile is beginning to
be a major environmental and economic issue in parts of the world. In some parts of Australia, soil salinization
is occurring in some regions partly due to sea salt being brought inland by
wind and flooding and then being brought to the surface by modern farming
practices such as irrigation and clearing the land. The thin top-soil layers have become far too
salty for successful agriculture and it is estimated that more than 2.5 million
hectares of land has become unusable because of these modern farming practices
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| Salt Lake, Northern Territory Australia |
Off The Beaten Salt Track
Sea Salt Image PinPin Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 Generic
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