Except salt occurs naturally and doesn't have to be synthetically prepared. >_>

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Table salt is NaCl, sodium chloride. Sodium, the element, occurs naturally, but table salt that we eat does not.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

But people didn't just decide to combine sodium and chlorine randomly and eat it. There's more to it than that.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Oh, okay.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Na and Cl are both too reactive to exist on their own in nature. Tons of salt on the other hand can be found in the ocean.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

I don't think sodium metal occurs naturally...

by Anonymous 14 years ago

yes it does...

by Anonymous 14 years ago

sodium is only found in compounds, like NaCl

by Anonymous 14 years ago

I'll give you a dollar if you can go find me a pound of sodium metal. And stick it in your mouth.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

And I'm pretty sure table salt does occur naturally... Like when ocean water evaporates

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Ever heard of salt mines?

by Anonymous 14 years ago

I don't care whether or not salt occurs naturally. But this post made me laugh.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

haha i love this post <3

by Anonymous 14 years ago

This post is such a fail and I'm really wondering how it got on the homepage. And this is my post.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Even if this post isn't technically correct, it's still funny because people wouldve been like "oh hey look a random white granules by the ocean! Let's use them to season food!"

by Anonymous 14 years ago

I think what probably happened is they (whoever "they" might be) noticed when they washed their food (meat or vegetables) in seawater, it tasted better. Eventually, they found out they could extract the salt by evaporating the water (probably by leaving a washtub or something full of it out too long), and that's how salt was born.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Actually, the OP makes a pretty good point about how they first used salt. It wasn't originally used for flavor, it was used to preserve food since they didn't have refrigerators. I've always wondered how they figured out to use it for that.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

True, I forgot about preservation. I suppose they figured that out the way I just explained above. I've always wondered how some of these far-fetched discoveries come about. Baking, for instance. It's so precise, how could you randomly mix stuff and magically come up with something that works?

by Anonymous 14 years ago

right cuz its not like theres salt in oceans or anything

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Read the book "Salt" it will fix any thoughts you have ever had about salt.

by Anonymous 14 years ago

Salt has been an important resource throughout history as it was first used as a preservative and seasoning. Before refrigeration, humans had to preserve their foods in other ways. Salt acts as a preservative because it draws water out, which helps sustain foods like meat, and it also kills microorganisms so they don't contribute to the spoilage of food. As early as the Iron Age, the British would boil down seawater to draw out raw salt. It was also collected from mineral deposits of salt that formed where saltwater had evaporated. Human cultures formed around places where salt was naturally occurring, according to a report by Cargill, and the substance quickly became essential to civilization and trading. It was used as currency across the world by people, including the Romans and Tibetans. It was so important in Rome that words used today, like "soldier" and "salary," have their roots in Latin words related to salt as currency. In the past, it has even been taxed to pay for wars or the wants of the monarchy; the British monarchy, for instance, taxed salt heavily, which resulted in citizens being prosecuted for smuggling salt into the country in the 18th century.

by Anonymous 10 years ago