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Collected salt mounds Naturally formed salt crystals Ancient method of boiling brine into pure salt in China. Salt, also referred to as table salt or by its chemical formula NaCl (sodium chloride), is an ionic compound made of sodium and chloride ions. All life depends on its chemical properties to survive.
Salt became an important article of trade and was transported by boat across the Mediterranean Sea, along specially built salt roads, and across the Sahara on camel caravans. The scarcity and universal need for salt have led nations to go to war over it and use it to raise tax revenues.
Because salt is a necessity of life, the salt tax (sometimes called the salt gabelle, after the French term for a salt tax) had a broad base and could be set at a low rate and still be one of the most important sources of government revenue. In early times, governments gathered salt revenues by managing production and sales directly.
Why is salt important? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that Americans eat less than 2,300 mg of sodium per day in a healthy diet or 1,500 mg for a more ideal diet.
It not only preserved food in the days before refrigeration, but was also vital in the curing of leather. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman once said that "salt is eminently contraband", as an army that has salt can adequately feed its men. [1] The most important saltworks for the Confederacy were at Saltville, Virginia. In late 1864, the ...
Experts explain why you crave salt all the time, possible causes for salt cravings, and how to curb salt cravings.
Diorama of an underground salt mine in Germany. Inside Salina Veche, in Slănic, Prahova, Romania.The railing (lower middle) gives the viewer an idea of scale. Before the advent of the modern internal combustion engine and earth-moving equipment, mining salt was one of the most expensive and dangerous of operations because of rapid dehydration caused by constant contact with the salt (both in ...
A chemistry professor explains the science that makes salt a cheap and efficient way to lower freezing temperature.