Salt, also known as table salt or rock salt (halite), is a crystalline mineral that is composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of ionic salts. It is absolutely essential for animal life, but can be harmful to animals and plants in excess. Salt is one of the oldest, most ubiquitous food seasonings and salting is an important method of food preservation. The taste of salt (saltiness) is one of the basic human tastes.
Salt for human consumption is produced in different forms: unrefined salt (such as sea salt), refined salt (table salt), and iodized salt. It is a crystalline solid, white, pale pink or light gray in color, normally obtained from sea water or rock deposits. Edible rock salts may be slightly grayish in color because of mineral content.
Because of its importance to survival, salt has often been considered a valuable commodity during human history. However, as salt consumption has increased during modern times, scientists have become aware of the health risks associated with high salt intake, including high blood pressure in sensitive individuals. Therefore, some health authorities have recommended limitations of dietary sodium, although others state the risk is minimal for typical western diets.
Read more about Salt: History, Health Effects, Production, Non-dietary Uses, Usage in Religion
Other articles related to "salt":
... Mineral salt has long been mined wherever it was available the salt mines of Hallstatt go back at least to the Iron Age ... However, there are many places where mineral salt is not present, and the alternative coastal source has also been exploited for thousands of years ... For this reason, modern sea salt production is almost entirely found in Mediterranean and other warm, dry climates ...
... Sea salt, salt obtained by the evaporation of seawater, is used in cooking and cosmetics ... It is also called bay salt or solar salt ... Generally more expensive than table salt, it is commonly used in gourmet cooking and specialty potato chips, particularly the kettle cooked variety (known as hand-cooked in the UK/Europe) ...
... Wet brining Brining in a solution containing water, salt, sugar, spices, with (or without) sodium nitrite for a number of days ... typically used in Europe, in which salmon fillets are covered with a mix of salt and sugar ... The proteins in the fish are modified (denatured) by the salt, which enables the flesh of the salmon to hold moisture better than it would if not brined ...
... Sussex 2010 William Rowe (Ed.), The Salt Companion to Bill Griffiths (Salt Publishing, 2007) The Mud Fort, Salt Publishing, 2004 Durham and other sequences, West House Books, 2002 Ushabtis, Talus, 2001 A ...
... In December 2004, the Fire traded Whitfield and Dipsy Selolwane to the expansion Real Salt Lake in exchange for Salt Lake's 2005 third round and 2006 second round draft ... He played five games for Salt Lake before being released mid-season ...
Famous quotes containing the word salt:
“The salt person and blasted place
I furnish with the meat of a fable;
If the dead starve, their stomachs turn to tumble
An upright man in the antipodes
Or spray-based and rock-chested sea:
Over the past table I repeat this present grace.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“But we are spirits of another sort.
I with the morning’s love have oft made sport,
And like a forester the groves may tread
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessèd beams,
Turns unto yellow gold his salt green streams.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The indispensable ingredient of any game worth its salt is that the children themselves play it and, if not its sole authors, share in its creation. Watching TV’s ersatz battles is not the same thing at all. Children act out their emotions, they don’t talk them out and they don’t watch them out. Their imagination and their muscles need each other.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)