Tracy V. Wilson, HowStuffWorks.com
With just a tiny taste, even the worst cook can tell whether food needs salt. It's the world's oldest food additive, and we don't use it just because it tastes good. We need it to survive. So do animals, which is why hunters and farmers leave salt licks for wildlife and livestock.
Where Salt Comes From
Before it finds its way into that famous blue container, most salt is either underground or underwater. You can mine it just like you would other minerals, or you can evaporate the water from oceans or salt lakes, leaving the salt behind.
What Makes Salt, Salt
Salt is made of chlorine and sodium -- two things you probably wouldn't normally think of eating. But put those two elements together, and you have a substance that adds flavor to food, exfoliates the skin, and helps your body generate muscle contractions and nerve impulses.
What Salt Begat
You can use salt to cure meat and can vegetables, but its uses go way beyond food. Salt melts ice on slippery sidewalks, soaks up wine stains from carpet, cleans stained coffee pots and is even taking the place of chlorine in keeping pools germ free.
A Surprising Thing About Salt
Today, you can buy a pound of salt at the store without breaking the bank. But salt has been the stuff of wars and revolutions, and at times it's been so valuable that people have used it as money.
Salt in the age of The Jetsons
As more people focus on going green, salt may get a boost as nontoxic way to kill unwanted plants. It's a more positive way to look at the ancient practice of salting the earth -- plowing fields with salt so enemies couldn't grow crops there.
