One of the very first things I did when I first started prepping was to bolster my storage room with basic staples that would be used for a range of functions. When it had been recommended that I store salt, and plenty of it, i was a nonbeliever. After all, conventional thought knowledge had taught me that salt was the bad guy.
According to the Mayo Clinic, lowering your salt intake will facilitate lower your blood pressure and your risk of cardiovascular disease. moreover, a study revealed in the New England Journal of Medicine found that folks who consumed over seven grams of salt per day had a far higher risk of death than people who consumed 3-6 grams per day.
The authors estimate that reducing salt intake may save between $10 billion and $24 billion in health care prices annually. In light-weight of this, several specialists are calling on food makers and restaurants to lower the quantity of salt in the foods they sell.
On the other hand, sodium is important to keep our bodies functioning usually. It’s a main element of the extracellular fluids in the body. It’s vital for control hydration and additionally aids different body functions, like the transmission of nerve impulses and also the contraction and relaxation of muscles.
For most people, the quantity of salt required to remain healthy will be already be found in processed, packaged, or canned foods. Allow us to hope that we’ve got keep enough of those foods – especially the canned things – that we’ll ne’er need to worry regarding adding more.
Having gone most of my adult life avoiding salt, coming back to terms with adding salt to my survival storage room was true mind-shift. Not only is there a physiological need for our bodies to ingest salt in one type or another, however there are a large number of alternative uses apart from food sweetening and food preservation.
The following list is a combination of suggestions:
- Food preservation – Salt will be used as an off-grid way to preserve meat, fish and game that’s caught within the wild
- Supplemental use – Table salt will offer the nominal quantity of dietary sodium once the canned and processed foods are gone
- Taste enhancement – (perhaps this should be number one!)
- Dental hygiene – A salt paste can be used to brush your teeth
- Remove Rust – Make a paste using six tablespoons of salt and a couple of tablespoons lemon juice. Apply paste to rusty area with a dry cloth and rub. Rinse completely and dry.
- Perk up coffee flavor – Add a pinch of salt to the coffee within the basket of your coffeemaker. This may improve the coffee’s flavor by serving to to remove a number of the acid taste.
- Clean cast iron skillets and pots – If our cast iron cookware is gunked up with bits of food, make a paste from salt and alittle of water then scrub it clean. To hurry the method, boil alittle quantity of water within the pot, add some salt and use an extended handled brush to whisk away the burned on food.
- Eliminate fish odors – Removing fish odor from your hands is easy with Salt. Simply rub your hands with a lemon wedge dipped in salt, then rinse with water.
- Cut cutting board odors – To help cut odors off of your wood board, merely pour a generous quantity of Salt directly on the board. Rub gently with a damp textile. Wash in warm, sudsy water.
- Soothe sore throats – To alleviate the discomfort of a gentle sore throat, gargle many times daily with a combination of 1/4 teaspoon Salt and 1/2 cup heat water. It’s like taking a liquid lozenge.
- Treat your tootsie’s – To prepare a salt water bath, pour six quarts (1-1/2 gallons) heat water in a massive basin. Combine in 1/4 cup Salt and 1/4 cup sodium bicarbonate. Soak feet for up to fifteen minutes.
- Boiling water – Salt added to water makes the water boil at a higher temperature, so reducing cookery time, it doesn’t make the water boil faster.
- Testing egg freshness – Place the egg in a cup of water to which 2 teaspoonful’s of salt has been added . A fresh egg sinks; if it floats, toss it.
- Cleaning greasy pans – The greasiest iron pan will wash simply if you utilize alittle salt in it and wipe with paper towels.
- Cleaning stained cups – Rubbing with salt will take away stubborn tea or coffee stains from cups.
- Save the bottom of your oven – If a pie or casserole bubbles over in the oven, put some of salt on top of the spill. It won’t smoke and smell, and it’ll bake into a crust that produces the baked-on mess a lot of easier to clean when it’s cooled.
- Fend off fire from a rogue BBQ – Toss alittle of salt on flames from food dripping in barbecue grills to cut back the flames and calm the smoke without cooling the coals like water does.
- Removing pinfeathers – To remove pinfeathers simply from a chicken, rub the chicken skin with salt 1st.
- Preventing mold – To prevent mould on cheese, wrap it during a cloth dampened with saltwater before refrigerating.
- Keeping milk fresh – Adding a pinch of salt to milk will keep it fresh longer.
- Scaling fish – Soak fish in salt water before descaling; the scales will come off easier.
- Non-stick pancakes – Rub salt on your pancake griddle and your flapjacks won’t stick.
- Keeping cut flowers fresh – A dash of salt added to the water in a flower vase will keep cut flowers fresh longer.
- Keeping patios weed-free – If weeds or unwanted grass come up between patio bricks or blocks, carefully spread salt between the bricks and blocks, then sprinkle with water or wait for rain to wet it down.
- Killing poison ivy – Mix three pounds of salt with a gallon of soapy water and apply to leaves and stems with a sprayer.
- Deodorizing shoes – Sprinkling a little salt in canvas shoes occasionally will take up the moisture and help remove odors.
- Relieving bee stings – If stung, immediately wet the spot and cover with salt to relieve the pain.
- Deter ants – Sprinkle salt at doorways, window sills and anyplace else ants sneak into your house. Ants don’t wish to walk on salt.
- Clean teeth – Use one part fine salt to two parts baking soda–dip your toothbrush in the mix and brush as usual.
- Melt snow and ice – Sprinkle salt on snow or ice to melt away.
- Removing soot – Occasionally throw some of salt on the flames in your fireplace; it’ll facilitate loosen soot from the chimney and salt makes a bright yellow flame.
- For soap making – Salt could be a part in some soap recipes. It stimulates a chemical reaction that hardens the soap.
- Nasal Rinse – Mix well 1/4 cup salt and 1/4 cup of bicarbonate and store in an air tight container, use 1/4 tsp. for every rinse. This may facilitate stop a chilly virus in its tracks, will facilitate with seasonal allergies, and may relieve sinus pressure. many of us use a neti pot for this purpose.
- Dispose of disposal odor – To help take away odors from garbage disposals, pour 1/2 cup of Salt directly into the rubbish disposal. By running the disposal following manufacturer’s directions, you’ll send those odors down the drain.
Now granted, a number of these uses are handy dandy but not 100% survival and prepper-centric. Still, as this demonstrates, there are plenty of day to day uses for salt that may make our lives easier if less pleasant.
This is the cheap salt you’ll find at any food market, discount center, or maybe dollar store across the country. It’s cheap and simple to acquire.
Unfortunately, when it is refined all of the beneficial minerals are removed. Perhaps part of the reason that salt is so hard on your body is that most of us end up consuming this version. It is refined to the point that it’s mostly sodium chloride. It usually has additives like iodine and anti-caking agents.
This kind of salt is okay for cleanup purposes, but don’t look thereto as a health supplement.
Kosher Salt
Kosher salt is incredibly like regular table salt, however it’s sold in flakes as opposed to finely ground. The initial use of kosher salt was within the Jewish religion, to get rid of all of the blood from meat as per their religious needs.
Sea Salt
Sea salt comes from evaporating ocean water. The darker the color, the a lot of “impurities” it’s – but during this case impurities may be trace minerals and nutrients.
While it isn’t as refined as the salt higher than, the intense pollution in our oceans means sea salt might not be the healthiest possibility. It may be very high in heavy metals, and post-Fukushima, even radiation, depending upon the origin of the salt.
Celtic Salt
Celtic salt may be a kind of sea salt that comes from a particular region in France. it’s grayish in color and a wet texture, not like alternative kinds of salt that are completely dry.
It contains identical minerals as regular ocean salt, and the proportion of sodium chloride is slightly less than alternative salts.
Pink Himalayan Salt
Pink himalayan salt is harvested in Pakistan. The pink color comes from iron oxide. Pink Himalayan salt additionally has different minerals like magnesium, calcium, and potassium. whereas an exact quantity of salt is critical for your survival, it’s not a supply of adequate nutrition.
Going with one of the natural sources of salts for consumption is best for your body. It’s processed additional simply and doesn’t contain the additives that low-cost flavouring will.
I have checked variety of sources and the accord is that you should store five to ten pounds of salt per person as a 1 year provide. And currently that i believe regarding it, with such a lot of uses, i’d suggest storing alittle a lot of for use as barter currency.
The other factor value mentioning is that salt is easy to store. you’ll use mylar bags, buckets or perhaps re-processed jars or soda bottles. Simply keep in mind that you shouldn’t use an oxygen absorber as a result of if you do, the salt can flip in to a solid brick!
