Salt

             Salt, also called sodium chloride, is a very well-known substance used by many and very common in today’s world, but would have thought that this molecule could influence history and change the world. Salt is something very cheap nowadays, that we tend to mindlessly use as we please, and end up forgetting that in the past this molecule was a very valuable treasure and very expensive. Its uses were so important that its trade influenced innumerous changes in society.

            Sodium Chloride is formed of a regular arrangement of two differently charged ions, the sodium ion, which is positive, and the negatively charged chloride ion. This are held together by strong attractive forces due to the opposite charges, and form a crystal lattice structure.

Salt is an ionic compound, and the too charged sides of the molecules will create strong attractive forces with water, which will account for both, salt high solubility, and its ability to preserve food. The ions in sodium chloride have a tendency to randomly disperse, and with the strong attraction with molecule water, the ions of NaCl will separate and dissolve. As for salt’s preservative characteristics, this is also due to the attraction it has with water, because the salt will remove the water from the food tissues, and the bacterium which promotes the decay won’t be able to survive in the salty and anhydrated environment and the food won’t spoil as fast.

Salt is very important substance for the well-functioning of our body, in pre-historic times humans would satisfy their need for sodium chloride by eating large quantities of meat, however with vegetables being a bigger and bigger part of the diet in future times, people started to need another source of the molecule. Salt is important for the body because its components have extremely important roles in the functioning of the nerves, in the muscle movements, and also in the production of hydrochloric acid, which is a very important digestive juice in the stomach. Salt is then very important for our bodies, and the lack of it may create negative effects on our system, but the excess of salt can also cause this negative effects, so there should be a control in the amount of salt taken so that we can stay healthy.

            The main means of production of salt used in the past were the evaporating of seawater, boiling down salt solutions from brine springs or mining rock salt, all processes still used today, being the evaporation of sea water the most common process even though the salt produced was not as good as the one obtained in brine springs and rock salt due to being contaminated with magnesium and calcium chloride, which lowered his ability as a preservative. The production of salt was a very profitable business in the past thanks to its great demand, and a lot of cities grew and developed with the extraction activities of this ‘white gold’. The trading of salt has existed for centuries being dated to ancient civilizations that used salt in the mummification process. Later salt become the vital substance in one of the greatest trades triangles, and many tons of gold were sent to Europe through the gold and salt trade routes. Now that salt could be globally available, and could be used in ships to preserve the food, the voyages could be a lot longer, and sailors could adventure in more unknown seas and lands. However not everything was perfect in the salt trade, due to the elevated taxes that were used and that made the salt extremely expensive for some areas, while for others it wasn’t as much. The salt trade was the perfect way for the government to create a regular source of income, because salt was so ultimately needed, and there was no other substance that could replace it. It is even believed that these high taxes on salt may be one of the main driving forces for the French revolution. The big necessity for salt at this time was the source of a lot of misery for people around the world, which not only had to pay the salt, but also its high taxes. This led to people selling illegal salt, and created innumerous strikes and boycotts due to the big discontentment. In 1825 the United Kingdom became the first country to abolish the salt taxes, when it was understood that salt could have a very important role in the industrial prosperity of Britain.  A lot of industries at the time used raw salt for various manufacturing processes and in the production of inorganic chemicals, needed in the manufacture of other products. For example, the rise in the soap industry has everything to do with the lifting of the taxes on salt, because this substance was a very important and more abundant material in the production of soda ash, mentioned in the previous entry as a component for soap manufacture. Through chemical reactions the raw salt would be transformed into soda ash and used for soap. Besides the soap industry, salt was also used in the production of caustic soda, which was very important in the extraction of aluminum metal from its ores, and in the manufacture of rayon and other products. Adding to that the chlorine gas which was used as a bleaching agent and disinfectant, was also a product of salt reactions, and it’s still used today as a pesticide or in pharmaceutics. All this shows the various uses and the important role salt had played in the industry.

            The authors through this chapter show the reader the various areas in which salt has played an important role, mentioning stories of ancient times until most recent events, which perfectly convince us of its importance. Salt is of course still important today, most probably not as important since people tend to take it for granted, but it’s still very important and big necessity in our daily life. Today most people would not be able to imagine a world without salt because that’s how much we need it and how much it has shaped us.