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So What About Salt

Salt Facts

All vertebrates have the same amount of salt in their blood (9 grams per liter), which makes it four times saltier than seawater.


© Raimond Spekking / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 & GFDL; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Naturkundemuseum_Berlin_-_Dinosaurierhalle.jpg

Chemical laboratories analyzed table salt (rock salt) and sea salt to determine a difference. There was none, yet sea salt tastes better due to other minerals present in seawater.
 

 

In 2008, world salt production amounted to about 260 million tons.

 

Image by: Marcus Guimarães; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salt_ship_loading.jpg

 

 

An adult human body contains about 250 grams of salt crystals
That's 1 1/4 cups!.

 


Some scientists estimate that the oceans contain as much as 50 quadrillion tons (50,000,000,000,000,000) of dissolved solids. If the salt in the ocean could be removed and spread evenly over the Earth’s land surface it would form a layer more than 166 m (500 feet) thick, about the height of a 40-story office building.

 

 

 

NASA- Visible Earth https://visibleearth.nasa.gov
 
Atlantic sea water is heavier than Pacific sea water due to its higher salt content.

 


Salt was used to preserve Egyptian mummies.  


Image by: Gérard Ducher- https://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:GD-EG-Alex-Mus%C3%A9eNat068.JPG

 

 

How many grains of salt are there in a pound?


Image by: Mark Schellhase- https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mschel

There are about 10,000,000 crystals per pound.
 
 

 

 

1911

Morton starts adding magnesium carbonate (an anti-caking agent) to salt, creating a table salt that flows freely, even in humid weather. This additive has since been changed to calcium silicate.

   
 

1914

The famous Morton Salt Umbrella Girl and slogan, "When It Rains It Pours®" first appear on the blue package of table salt and in a series of Good Housekeeping magazine advertisements. The slogan is adapted from an old proverb, “It never rains but it pours.”

 

Info/images from: https://www.mortonsalt.com/our-history/mortons-history


Chinese emperor Hsia Yu (2200 BC) was the first to levy a tax on salt. This was also the first tax ever. In France, the notorious salt tax (la gabelle) was partially responsible for the eruption of the French revolution on 1789.

 

"Taxes" in Mandarin 
 
Salary...
Roman soldiers were paid for work in salarium, which was an allowance for the purchase of salt, a hard to find commodity. The word soldier, in that era, literally meant 'one who is paid in salt.
In ancient Greece, slaves were traded for salt, and unruly slave was not "worth one's salt" and "with a grain of salt" (i.e. of little value). 

 

 

Δεν αλάτι αξίζει κανείς

"worth one's salt"