As with sugar, salt has played a pivotal role in our food history from around the same sort of period. The earliest record of sea water being heated to extract the salt is just over 6000BC but, of course, would have been known far longer than that, just not recorded.
As with most things that made our early lives better, salt was so important it was valued very highly - with a price to match. It was not the prerogative of everyone to have access to salt and those that did, guarded it carefully. At one point, Roman soldiers received part of their regular wages in salt, or sal in Latin. This was copied by others and so salt became part of your regular income, or salary. The Romans even had a Latin verb to describe the process of salting food to preserve it - salio.
By the Middle Ages, salt had become an addition to the table but held a specific position. Only those seated above where the salt was placed could partake of it, a neat way of letting everyone know who was who, or worth their salt. Similarly, being described as the salt of the earth, denotes that you are of the highest value as, at the time, salt was the most expensive commodity and essential for the safe preservation of food to be of benefit to all.
Salt definitely makes our food more palatable but like sugar, in modern times has undergone an incredibly harsh onslaught in the media. In fact we only derive under 20% of our daily required intake of salt that occurs naturally in food - the rest is added through cooking or being sprinkled directly. Without it our food would be extremely bland and some almost inedible.
I am going to quote directly here - for reasons of accuracy - from The Salt Association’s website (see link below) which is altogether a fascinating read. “A host of research, including the Food Standards Agency’s National Diet and Nutrition Survey, has shown that there is no significant effect on the blood pressure of healthy people from eating salt.
Your kidneys very precisely filter your salt intake – any that is not essential to your body is excreted. Under medical supervision, a low-salt diet may be beneficial for those already suffering raised blood pressure. But, scientists internationally do not agree with the need for blanket advice on salt intake for the population as a whole.
Several large-scale intervention studies have shown that restriction of sodium in the diet has no effect on diastolic blood pressure and only a minimal effect on systolic blood pressure.
Since 1995, 10 studies in the United States have reported on whether low sodium diets produce health benefits. All 10 indicate that, among the general population, lower sodium diets don’t produce health benefits. In fact, not a single study has ever shown improved health outcomes for broad populations on reduced sodium diets.
In February 2004, a coalition of six Canadian medical groups rejected a recommendation for universal salt restriction, choosing instead to make lifestyle recommendations for reducing blood pressure such as exercising, eating a balanced diet, and stress management.
Most recently, a study from the Wolfson Medical Centre in Tel Aviv has shown that above average levels of aldosterone in the blood in healthy young adults can cause fibrosis and stiffening of the walls of large arteries along with inflammation and muscle enlargement, changes usually associated with high blood pressure. Aldosterone is released into the blood when salt intake is reduced and its main function is to conserve salt by preventing its excretion via the kidneys in the urine.
Our view is that salt is being damned without adequate evidence. Given the importance of the issue, we fail to understand why the government is not commissioning the research that is so badly needed. In the meantime, we would advocate a much more holistic attack on the nation’s dietary habits designed to reduce alcohol consumption, tackle obesity and increase consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables. Such factors have been found to have a marked effect on reducing blood pressure.”
So, setting aside the modern concerns over the benefits, or not, of actually using salt as part of a wholesome diet let us take a look at salt in the preservation of food. It is very powerful when used to draw the water out of food that needs to be kept for a long time - as with salt cod, for example where it is the only method of preservation deployed. The salting may be done by a liberal application of dry salt to the food, as with the cod, layering the fish with the salt and allowing all of the moisture to be extracted before storing the fish which is now hard and dry.
Salting is also an essential process in making pickles - to extract as much water by osmosis as possible before adding your pickling vinegar and spices. The ingredients, such as pickled onions or red cabbage as an example, will retain some crunch and flavour and the yeasts, moulds and bacteria will not be able to find an hospitable environment.
Cured meats such as hams, bacon and sausages (salami) would have been salted first and then hung up so the outside could dry and resist attack from ‘the bugs’! Slices were cut in situ and my father remembers that the only person in in household to eat meat was his father, and the children just got bread or potatoes with the cooking juices poured over.
I used to say to my students that when salting ingredients to remove/reduce the moisture content, say when peparing Piccalilli, to use plenty as it was going to be rinsed off, and that it didn’t matter what type of salt it was.
I have changed my mind.
The first bit is OK not so sure about the second.
Nowadays I prefer to eat or drink as little as I can of additives especially if I do not recognise them.
Table Salt contains anti-caking agents to help make the salt trouble-free in the kitchen or on the table. The most common are sodium or potassium ferrocyanide, which despite the name are nothing to do with the poison. Another is sodium aluminosilicate. Some salt without anti-caking agents has instead a caking preventative. Silicon dioxide is added to the salt to keep it free-flowing and there are apparently no harmful effects to the human gut from swallowing all of the silicon . . . .
It is definitely not the case that these types of salt are harmful to eat as such, but to me it is always the combination of chemicals that are taken into the body through additives such as this, and colourings, fragrances - the list is endless. Many of them contain metal oxides which can have a damaging effect on our gut. As a great many of these types of additions can be made under the catch-all description of Processing Aids the food manufacturers are not required to list them individually.
I therefore prefer to always use sea salt, rock salt, or Himalayan Pink Salt in my kitchens. Yes they cost more but are unrefined and contain beneficial naturally occurring minerals. The flakey sea salts are my favourite, left to evaporate the sea water on huge draining tables, the salt is moved around with large shovels until the flakes form. This flake form of salt does mean that you need to use slightly more in recipes where it is replacing table salt. The fine grains of table salt mean that a teaspoon of this salt is almost twice the amount of sodium than one teaspoon of flakey sea salt. The sodium percentage in the two different forms is actually the same.
In conclusion, as with everything in preserving, the rules and methods are ancient. I do not really believe that there is anything to be gained by throwing all of that away to follow modern fads which are far from proven. It is very difficult to quiet the noise around us, the clamour of the internet, social media, peer pressure - it makes it hard to be rooted in the tried and tested - but the stakes are high. Food safety, the knowledge that what you have made is sound and will not harm your family. To be confident in what you have stored, to benefit from the higher standard of nutrition, the considerable financial savings - all of these are based on science - not an influencer on Instagram. Our bodies are very good at extracting the goodness that is required from the food that we eat - but it does need to be food in the first place, not a cocktail of E numbers, additives, chemicals that have been concocted to fool our senses with a feeling that we can have it all, all the food we think we love, all of the time, for very little money - and no consequences.
Resources
Simply Preserved Magazine - Spring 2025 published now - read fpr free in page-turning software
The Salt Association
Lovely article. Agree entirely!
This is very interesting. I have adopted 2 trees via Crowdfarming but I noticed in the list that there were saltpans up for adoption, Louise