Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Charles W. Chuck Bryant Here on a lovely
Speaker 1: Saturday morning in Atlanta, Georgia. We're going back in time
Speaker 1: to February fourteen to talk about salt. Our episode How
Speaker 1: Salt Works is one of my all time favorites. I
Speaker 1: love salt because I'm from the South. Probably like a
Speaker 1: little too much, he asked my doctor. But that salty
Speaker 1: salty goodness on food just makes it all pop for me.
Speaker 1: But it has a really cool, interesting backstory. How you
Speaker 1: get salt, a harvest salt and how salt works on food?
Speaker 1: Learn all about it right now. Welcome to Stuff You
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know the podcast. Oh yeah, Jerry's over there. She's all
Speaker 1: laughy today for some reason. An old salty dogs. Why
Speaker 1: did salty calling someone salty? I wonder where that came from.
Speaker 1: I meant to look that up. That's the one I'm
Speaker 1: did in the book. Cut because you know you're in
Speaker 1: a salty mode. Yeah, I've said that plenty And what
Speaker 1: if that comes from like a salty dog. Here's here,
Speaker 1: this is this is my idea. So salty describe somebody
Speaker 1: who is a little coarse, a little rough around the edges,
Speaker 1: a little upset. Hear me out because their face is
Speaker 1: usually puckered into like a a sour puss face. And
Speaker 1: what makes your face pucker eating salt. So there's a
Speaker 1: salty person. Okay, I would call them lemony. Well, so
Speaker 1: take something with a grain of salt. It's actually ancient.
Speaker 1: That's from the romans Um. They would take poison with
Speaker 1: a grain of salt. There's something that was hard to
Speaker 1: swallow with a grain of salt to make it go
Speaker 1: down more easily. Okay, let's go ahead and cover these.
Speaker 1: Then somebody not being worth their salt. In this article
Speaker 1: it says that um slaves were traded with salt, and
Speaker 1: if you got your hands on like a slave that
Speaker 1: wasn't worth much Like that, he wasn't worth his salt?
Speaker 1: Is that not the origin I found? The first reference
Speaker 1: in print came from an eighteen oh five description or
Speaker 1: book about an expedition to Guinea Bissau, and it mentions
Speaker 1: a guy who wasn't worth his salt. He's a good
Speaker 1: man Peter Hale h a y eli um. But he
Speaker 1: wasn't worth his salt, the guy said. And I looked
Speaker 1: it up, and I couldn't find that whether Hale was
Speaker 1: hired or was a slave. But I got the impression that, Um,
Speaker 1: what the guy was talking about wasn't that he had
Speaker 1: traded salt for hail, but not worth a salt like
Speaker 1: in his body. No, he was not worth the salt,
Speaker 1: meaning a salary, which supposedly salary is rooted in the
Speaker 1: idea of paying someone in salt, same with soldiers salt
Speaker 1: dre and to give salt salad to the word salad
Speaker 1: comes from the word salt, so salt is a it's
Speaker 1: a an important thing. Historically speaking, there's been economies largely
Speaker 1: based on salt. There have been um cultures rated by
Speaker 1: other cultures because of salt. UM. If you were an
Speaker 1: ancient salt producing area, probably the rulers controlled with the
Speaker 1: tight grip um that salt production and salt distribution UM.
Speaker 1: And that actually carried on into the modern age when
Speaker 1: the when Great Britain was occupying India, they had a
Speaker 1: tight control on salt production there UM and actually Gandhi
Speaker 1: started a revolution or helped along the revolution to overthrow
Speaker 1: British imperial power through a salt protest. He walked two
Speaker 1: d and forty miles to the coast where the salt
Speaker 1: production facilities were and grabbed a bit of salty clay
Speaker 1: and boiled it, boiled the salt out of it, which
Speaker 1: was an illegal act. That protests burred other similar protests,
Speaker 1: and the British were like, oh, hey, you can't do that, mate,
Speaker 1: you can't mind your own salt. But he did because
Speaker 1: he was Gandhi. It was called the Salt March to
Speaker 1: Dandhee by g by Gandhi. Uh. Yeah, salt dates back
Speaker 1: to b C. And they actually found evidence of salt
Speaker 1: trading in prehistoric times. So obviously it's used to spice
Speaker 1: food is great, but it's used to preserve food was
Speaker 1: super valuable, yeah, back in the day and still today
Speaker 1: because salt is one of these things. You remember, Nature
Speaker 1: loves homeostasis, It loves balance. If you introduced salt to
Speaker 1: the mix, it kind of throws off that balance. So
Speaker 1: to gain homeo stasis, salt is introduced into say meat.
Speaker 1: It likes to go into the meat, but it also
Speaker 1: draws out the moisture. Whether it's blood water whatever. So
Speaker 1: it dries out the meat, it introduces the salt, and
Speaker 1: it draws out the moisture. That's right. That's called curing,
Speaker 1: which preserves things because anytime bacteria comes in contact with
Speaker 1: that salty meat, from that point on the bacteria boom
Speaker 1: gets dried out and dies. Yeah, that's why packaged foods
Speaker 1: are still loaded with sodium. Unfortunately, I got some stuff
Speaker 1: on that later. But it was used as a currency
Speaker 1: in Ethiopia up until the twentieth century, and was used
Speaker 1: as a form of suicide in China for nobility. They
Speaker 1: would o d on salt and kill themselves because it
Speaker 1: was expensive and very valuable, so nobility, that's like, it
Speaker 1: was like a noble way to go out. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk in a minute, like what happens when you have
Speaker 1: too much salt. It's not very pleasant. It's not very pleasant.
Speaker 1: But you know, in medieval Europe, remember we did the
Speaker 1: ten Medieval Torture Devices episode, Well we skipped one called
Speaker 1: the goats tongue, and it was apparently a real thing,
Speaker 1: a tickle torture. They would dip your feet bringing a
Speaker 1: goat and the goat would lick the bottom of your
Speaker 1: feet and then they would dip it again. And from
Speaker 1: that in the art description, No, I'm saying like it
Speaker 1: wasn't in there. Um from the description, apparently being tortured
Speaker 1: tickle tortured was not pleasant. I would love to have
Speaker 1: my feet licked by a goat. They would do it
Speaker 1: until you did not love it. That was the point
Speaker 1: of the goat's tongue to it. Sounds like fun to me. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the Middle Ages, salt was transported along the notorious
Speaker 1: Old Salt Route and northern Germany. I know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get you for Christmas, now, a goat in some
Speaker 1: salt water. I've had both at the same time. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I didn't think about it. Uh. It was
Speaker 1: played his big role in early America as well. Massachusetts
Speaker 1: Bay Colony had the first pattern to produce salt here
Speaker 1: in the colonies, saltwater in the comonies, and uh they
Speaker 1: did so for two hundred years. Uh. The Erie Canal
Speaker 1: opened primarily to transport salt. Yeah, they called it the
Speaker 1: ditch that salt built. It sounds like something you just
Speaker 1: made up. No, I swear I've been on the Erie Canal.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, they they have this nice system of locks,
Speaker 1: and um, they used to there's still like donkey trails
Speaker 1: from where the donkeys used to pull these little flat
Speaker 1: bottom boats that would carry salt and whatnot. And now
Speaker 1: yuppies walk along those trails. Dog yuppies? Are there still yuppies?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, thanks, Yeah, I heard one the other day.
Speaker 1: Uh dual income, large dog owner. Al Right. In the
Speaker 1: early eight hundred, salt was apparently four times expensive as
Speaker 1: beef because salt was valuable obviously, and we were allows
Speaker 1: you with beef. And in Civil War, salt played a
Speaker 1: big part in the Union strategy. Um, there were quite
Speaker 1: a few battles fault over capturing salt works and salt mines.
Speaker 1: Yeah in Saltville, Virginia. Yeah, what they do there. And
Speaker 1: it actually had a big effect on the salt shortage
Speaker 1: on the Confederate troops. Yeah, not just the troops, but
Speaker 1: the people behind the lines back in the Confederate States
Speaker 1: were like, we want our salt. And it had a
Speaker 1: huge impact on morale apparently, I would say so. And
Speaker 1: the reason why salt is so important. If you haven't
Speaker 1: gotten the impression that it is important by now, you
Speaker 1: should rewind the podcast and just listen to the last
Speaker 1: several minutes over again. Salt is extraordinarily important because the
Speaker 1: human body requires it. It's something that we need to
Speaker 1: survive and to live, so much so that we actually
Speaker 1: have a taste sense for it. Yeah, it's the only
Speaker 1: you don't need better to live or sour or umami.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, things like bitter and sour
Speaker 1: are there. I think to detect things that we shouldn't
Speaker 1: be eating, salt is to detect something we need that's right,
Speaker 1: and we can. Actually this is so mind blowing to me.
Speaker 1: I love the human body. I think it's amazingly wonderful
Speaker 1: in ways that we don't even fully understand yet. But
Speaker 1: consider this, When you need salt, your body produces a
Speaker 1: craving in you for salt. That is awesome. Like I'm
Speaker 1: one of those believers. I I don't follow it necessarily myself,
Speaker 1: but in a diet, well no, I think about it.
Speaker 1: In a diet where you just eat what you crave.
Speaker 1: I think you can go off the rails because I
Speaker 1: think that we uh have the wrong things now. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: but if you could go back a hundred fifty years,
Speaker 1: maybe I would bet you could survive pretty easily and
Speaker 1: thrive on a diet where you were just kind of
Speaker 1: led by your cravings, like, oh, I need some megs
Speaker 1: and eat a couple of eggs, steak. You don't know.
Speaker 1: You should pay attention to yourself, listen to what your
Speaker 1: body is telling you, and I'll bet you find that
Speaker 1: you do have specific cravings for specific moods, foods that
Speaker 1: are like very simple, like meat like chuck go eat
Speaker 1: a steak, Chuck go eat some eggs, like things that
Speaker 1: are basic staples. I'll bet you'll notice you have cravings salt. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's let's break it down chemically. Um, it's sodium and
Speaker 1: chlorine are the two basic elements. And salt, I think
Speaker 1: we all know this, which are electrolytes. That's right, and
Speaker 1: we'll get into that in a minute. Um, sodium is
Speaker 1: silvery white metal, and it is neither one of these
Speaker 1: are like super friendly independently of one another. No, you know,
Speaker 1: like especially chlorine. Yeah, sodium reacts violently if you mix
Speaker 1: it with water and oxidizes in air. Chlorine exists in
Speaker 1: gas at a room temperature. They're both really volatile. But
Speaker 1: when you put them together and you have sodium chloride,
Speaker 1: they make beautiful music. Makes beautiful halite, uh and beautiful music.
Speaker 1: And sodium chloride is about a sixt sodium to chloride,
Speaker 1: by the way, is that right? Yeah? Nice? It makes
Speaker 1: little cubes, right, Yeah? Is it? The molecules are cubicle, right.
Speaker 1: The sodium packs in pretty tight, and then the chlorine
Speaker 1: fills in the rest and they make tiny little cubes.
Speaker 1: It's actually reversed, That's what I said. Yeah, the chloride
Speaker 1: is packed and then the sodium fills in. But you know,
Speaker 1: I would have thought the sodium was bigger. Oh well, um,
Speaker 1: but what you have is n a c L that's right.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned electrolytes. Those are minerals that conduct electricity
Speaker 1: in our body and our fluids and tissues, which is
Speaker 1: very important, super important. Like a muscle movement, we run
Speaker 1: on electricity. Heart, Yeah, involuntary muscle. Um moves through electrical impulse.
Speaker 1: I guess all muscles do. Yeah. You want your eyes
Speaker 1: to blank, buddy, Yeah, eat some salt. Right, And so
Speaker 1: there's two conditions that you can have conceivably, well three,
Speaker 1: three would be just all systems are normal. But um,
Speaker 1: the other two is too little salt and too much salt.
Speaker 1: And too little salt is called hypo atrema. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what that lady died of the Hold your Way for
Speaker 1: a Week contest. Oh is that right? Yeah? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can o d on water, and I guess that's what
Speaker 1: you would ultimately die from as hypo into tremea their
Speaker 1: water toxicity. Um, if you have too much water, you
Speaker 1: probably have too little salt, because water flush is salt
Speaker 1: from your system. It's the method that your kidneys use
Speaker 1: to maintain the balance of salt and other electrolytes in
Speaker 1: your body. And that's why you might drink gatorade if
Speaker 1: you're working out, because it has electrolytes in it, right,
Speaker 1: exactly salty. You don't want to water your crop plan
Speaker 1: with it, though, no, no no, no, As we found from
Speaker 1: the movie Idiocracy. Yeah, and I actually found too that
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties there was a lot of controversy
Speaker 1: over salting roads killing roadside vegetation. Well, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean like that, if you were into conquests and
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and you wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that the land you just occupied couldn't be used to
Speaker 1: grow crops to feed an imposing armory army, you would
Speaker 1: plow the land with salt. Salt the earth, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is not the salt of the earth, because that means
Speaker 1: you're a good fellah, but not a good fella because
Speaker 1: those guys are salty. Wow, look at you. That was
Speaker 1: that of the team effort. Clever wordplay, my friend. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you take diuretics um or you have like a
Speaker 1: massive diarrhea for a period of days, or vomiting or
Speaker 1: some sort of stomach bug, you might be at risk
Speaker 1: for hyponatremia. Yeah, because you're flushing out all of this,
Speaker 1: all of your electrolytes. Yeah. This is salt that your
Speaker 1: body needs. So if it's out of balance, you're going
Speaker 1: to suffer things like, um, well an inability for your
Speaker 1: heart to beat, which is often fatal. Yeah, kidney problems yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you can have hypern atrema, which
Speaker 1: is too much salt, and like you said, if you're
Speaker 1: a Chinese aristocrat, um, you may die from hyperbern netrema. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They even had a m man sometimes a blanket on
Speaker 1: the word how to manual. Well, it's sort of like
Speaker 1: how many grams of salt you needed per pound in
Speaker 1: your body? That had like a chart. I guess if
Speaker 1: you want to kill yourself in China, yours. You do it.
Speaker 1: There's so much salt you need. But that was rough?
Speaker 1: Is you like that? Yeah, I'm off today. I'm a
Speaker 1: little off. You were on my my microphone just swerved
Speaker 1: to the left. Were happening. There's a ghost in here. Um,
Speaker 1: so too much sodium, I think you said already is
Speaker 1: hypernatremia instead of hypo hyper hyper hypo exactly. It's like glacemia,
Speaker 1: but with no tremia exactly, and with hyper in neutremia. Basically,
Speaker 1: remember how salt if you um, if you introduce it
Speaker 1: to say, a jerky of some sort, it will dry
Speaker 1: it out or slug. Yes, it's just a shameful thing
Speaker 1: to do. Don't do that. Um, if you introduce it
Speaker 1: to a meat or something like that, it's going to
Speaker 1: dry it out because through osmosis in search of homeostasis. UM,
Speaker 1: it does the same thing to your blood and your
Speaker 1: extracellular fluids. That salt will draw out the fluids in
Speaker 1: your cells, but will maintain it in your blood. It's
Speaker 1: why to retention. Basically, Yeah, your kidneys when it has
Speaker 1: too much salt to deal with, kicks it around the
Speaker 1: blood supply. Just like remember in the hangover episode when
Speaker 1: you why drugs are so fatal when you drink a
Speaker 1: lot of alcohol because your kidneys are trying to process
Speaker 1: your the alcohol, so it keeps the drugs just going
Speaker 1: around and around in your blood supply. Same thing with
Speaker 1: too much salt. If your kidneys have too much to
Speaker 1: deal with, they just keep the excess going around in
Speaker 1: your blood. And since that salt is drawing out all
Speaker 1: the excess moisture, it increases the volume of your blood,
Speaker 1: which makes your blood pressure rise, which makes your heart beat, Yes,
Speaker 1: which supposedly logically would put you at risk for a
Speaker 1: stroke or heart attack, and that's how you would die
Speaker 1: from hypernatremia, have high blood pressure. Well, supposedly sodium. Cutting
Speaker 1: your sodium down isn't gonna help. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of conflicting data on that for sure. Um, well we'll
Speaker 1: get to nutrition, so we'll cover that. M hm. So chuck. Um.
Speaker 1: They're like you said, there's a lot of controversy over
Speaker 1: how much salt or how little salt you should have
Speaker 1: on a daily basis in your diet. Yeah. Um, the
Speaker 1: Heart National Heart, Blood and Long Institute say no more
Speaker 1: than two point four grams of sodium. It's about a
Speaker 1: teaspoon per day. Americans, they found, consume an average of
Speaker 1: about three point four per day, So that's one gram
Speaker 1: too much on average, And um, you actually don't need
Speaker 1: more than about a half a gram a day if
Speaker 1: you want to maintain that stasis. So yeah, just for
Speaker 1: your electro lighte intake. The thing is, though, um, there
Speaker 1: was for many years because it makes sense that if
Speaker 1: you're if too much salt increases your blood pressure, then
Speaker 1: too much salt should be um, should put you at
Speaker 1: risk for strokes and heart attacks. Right. Well, the CDC
Speaker 1: panel surveyed material and all and all all sorts of
Speaker 1: studies that found no, cutting your sodium intake doesn't really
Speaker 1: doesn't decrease your risk of heart attack or stroke. And
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, there is was it just
Speaker 1: more hereditary? They don't know what it is. They just
Speaker 1: know that basically below three thousand grams or three thousand
Speaker 1: milligrams of salt and above seven thousand milligrams of salt
Speaker 1: a day were two groups that were at higher risk
Speaker 1: of heart attack. So if you have too little salt,
Speaker 1: you're at higher risk of heart attack to Okay, so
Speaker 1: try to keep it between three thousand and four thousand
Speaker 1: milligrams thousand and seven thousand. The thing is is they
Speaker 1: they don't They weren't comfortable making any recommendation. They were
Speaker 1: just everyone scared. This is what we found. Everyone's scared, like,
Speaker 1: go on the record, Yeah, because we just don't know. Like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense that you would have a
Speaker 1: heart attack if you ate less than three grams of
Speaker 1: sault today. Yeah. That that flies in the face of
Speaker 1: of um conventional wisdom, and nobody's figured out why yet. Interesting, Well,
Speaker 1: it's something you should monitor at the very least, because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people look at fat grams
Speaker 1: and calories and all that stuff is great to look
Speaker 1: at nutritionally, but um, when you start poking around on
Speaker 1: the soup can and you see, wow, this chicken noodle
Speaker 1: soup has milligrams of sodium, but it's so good. And
Speaker 1: this one little can which is almost a gram of sodium,
Speaker 1: yeah close to it. A quarter pounder with bacon and cheese.
Speaker 1: You didn't do Big Max. No, I should have been communist.
Speaker 1: I think big Max. Actually I did see. This is
Speaker 1: forty milligrams a big mac. I think was around eleven
Speaker 1: pounders more with the bacon. I think they have like
Speaker 1: a whole bacon onion ranch or something topping that you
Speaker 1: can put on quarter pounders. Now I've not yet tried this,
Speaker 1: but like I think about it from time to time,
Speaker 1: like right now, yeah, right now especially, uh So, at
Speaker 1: any rate, just give it a look. Like soups are
Speaker 1: notoriously high in sodium. Package foods are notoriously high in sodium. Um,
Speaker 1: don't just think about the table salt that you use, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't salt my food that much today? You need
Speaker 1: a lot of package food or eating a lot of sodium. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and nobody can tell you how much you should be
Speaker 1: eating or shouldn't be eating. But like you said, it's
Speaker 1: good to just pay attention to that kind of thing
Speaker 1: because you probably are eating a lot more than you realize,
Speaker 1: and you should be meat in a lot of package food. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'll just go ahead and say that, so, um, chuck, Yes,
Speaker 1: what kinds of salt are there? Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I should say I love salt. Salt and pepper are
Speaker 1: my favorite two spices. I'm from the South, have a
Speaker 1: taste for salt um and pork fat. Yeah that's pretty
Speaker 1: southern too, Yeah for sure. Uh So, I love salt.
Speaker 1: I like good Mediterranean sea salt. That's what I used
Speaker 1: at my house. Uh, and I'm gonna plug this local saltier.
Speaker 1: I just made that word up oh later in the show. Okay,
Speaker 1: but um, I'm a big salt fan. I like salt too,
Speaker 1: I like sweet, I like ummmy, I like um sour.
Speaker 1: I'm training myself to like bitter through the use of kompari. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like I I've found out that I'm a bitter super taster.
Speaker 1: So like things that seem like normal to other people
Speaker 1: are like really bitter to me. Like one example, grapefruit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's like like disgustingly bitter to me. Like I
Speaker 1: can't understand how the rest of humanity eats grape fruit.
Speaker 1: I don't like grapefruit. Well, maybe you're a bitter super
Speaker 1: taster too, But I have to tell you this. I've
Speaker 1: trained myself to like um, grapefruit and kompari just by exposure,
Speaker 1: like I've come to appreciate them. With campari, it's a
Speaker 1: bar like a bitter digestif for Apertif you do like
Speaker 1: a campari and soda, it's in a negrowning right. Oh.
Speaker 1: I think I've seen people like if their stomachs upset
Speaker 1: or is that bitters and soda? Well, campari is a
Speaker 1: type of bitters. It's not that super compact bitters like angustura,
Speaker 1: but it is a type of bitter. I think it's
Speaker 1: a digestif. Okay, it's good stuff anyway. I like salt.
Speaker 1: What I'm really saying there is I like well seasoned food.
Speaker 1: And if you're a chef or a home chef, you
Speaker 1: know that salt is important to cooking, super important and
Speaker 1: baking obviously, but bland food can't do it. No, what's
Speaker 1: the point. What is the point? Agreed types of salt.
Speaker 1: Let's start with table salt and and look, man, if
Speaker 1: you're if your doctor put you on like a bland
Speaker 1: food diet, I feel for you. But there's stuff out
Speaker 1: there you can eat. There's Spike, there's Mrs Dash, there's
Speaker 1: you should be seasoning your food to some extent like
Speaker 1: bland food is, like it's bland life. Yeah. They even
Speaker 1: had the imitation salt to the new in New Salt.
Speaker 1: I didn't do any research on that, but I've bought
Speaker 1: it before. You do you like it? I didn't use
Speaker 1: it that much, but it's it exists. In my home
Speaker 1: thanks to the empty thing of Mediterranean sea salt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, it's the table salts, the first one we
Speaker 1: should cover. That's the traditional um either iodized or non iodized,
Speaker 1: fine grained salt that you see in many, many homes
Speaker 1: and restaurants, and it's IDEs. They did a little research
Speaker 1: into this. Did you look up iodie salt? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I know that they they added it because
Speaker 1: at one point it was sort of like fluoride. They thought, well,
Speaker 1: we need this in a good place to put us
Speaker 1: in salt. Yeah, because most people use salt, and we'll
Speaker 1: just put it into table salt because it's an easy additive.
Speaker 1: But um, there was a real problem with hyper thyroidism,
Speaker 1: things like Goiter's mental retardi shan um just poor fetal
Speaker 1: development linked to um iodine deficiency. So they put it
Speaker 1: in salt, and apparently there it's considered to be responsible
Speaker 1: for this thing called the Flynn effect, which there was
Speaker 1: like a three i Q point rise in the middle
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century in western nations, and nobody could
Speaker 1: figure out what it is, and they think now that
Speaker 1: it was because they added iodine as salt, and so
Speaker 1: it had the aggregate effect of raising our i Q
Speaker 1: by um preventing poor fetal development. Yeah. Well, it's still
Speaker 1: a problem in other parts of the world, just not
Speaker 1: here in North America, right, other parts of the world
Speaker 1: that don't have idi salt. You know, dumb they are.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that was terrible. I'm just kidding. You need
Speaker 1: to apologize to the rest of the world for I'm
Speaker 1: sorry everybody. Uh So, like I said, table salt is
Speaker 1: the most common salt. Uh they remove all the impurities. Um.
Speaker 1: They have things in there to make it not clump
Speaker 1: and stick together, and so it pours freely even when
Speaker 1: it rains and poors. Well should we get to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't you have something on that? Yeah? The um I
Speaker 1: just for some reason thought of the Morton Salt girl,
Speaker 1: and like every great advertising story, they were like, how
Speaker 1: do we It was sort of a new thing at
Speaker 1: the time, in nineteen eleven two package salt this way
Speaker 1: in a container with a spout. How they package it
Speaker 1: before I don't know, the blocks, probably like a deer
Speaker 1: like or something. I'm not sure actually, but I know
Speaker 1: that this was a fairly revolutionary product. To package it
Speaker 1: like this and process it like this. Um. So the
Speaker 1: agency was um in w Air and Company, and Don
Speaker 1: Draper walks in and says, I've got twelve proposals for you.
Speaker 1: Which one do you like? And Sterling Morton of the
Speaker 1: Morton Company. Of course, it's always someone else, like his
Speaker 1: son or his wife or something. It was his son
Speaker 1: in secretary. UM pointed toward one of the ads with
Speaker 1: a little girl whole the umbrella and said this is
Speaker 1: the one, and he said, you know what, I think,
Speaker 1: you guys are right. The whole story is right there
Speaker 1: in the picture. Because the whole point was this salt
Speaker 1: doesn't clump, it'll when it rains, it poors, and little
Speaker 1: girls can't be trusted to be sent to the store
Speaker 1: by themselves because they ruin all the salt keeping the
Speaker 1: nozzle open on the way home. Uh. Some of the
Speaker 1: different UM slogans they had was flows freely, runs freely, pours,
Speaker 1: it never rains, but it pours. And then they finally
Speaker 1: settled on when it rains it poors. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: best one because it never rains but it pors. Doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. They probably fired that person and she's
Speaker 1: been updated one to three, four five times. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the last time in nineteen sixty eight and she's been
Speaker 1: the same since then. And there was never a real
Speaker 1: model for that girl. And that's a question they often get.
Speaker 1: She's totally made up. Yeah, because he was like, it's
Speaker 1: Morton's granddaughters. What you know, you want to think it's
Speaker 1: Selma Selma Morton. So that is the story of the Skein.
Speaker 1: That's an old timing name, if ever there was one.
Speaker 1: That's a college right, No, it's like a person's name. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a college to Okay, had a friend that played
Speaker 1: soccer there ke e r s k i Any, there's
Speaker 1: a college named Colgate too. It's like crazy to me. Uh,
Speaker 1: Sea salt sir is next. Uh, it's gonna cost you
Speaker 1: some more money because of several reasons, one of which
Speaker 1: if they go old school and in some parts of
Speaker 1: France they still harvest the stuff by hand, which is
Speaker 1: pretty cool. You might see it called flair de sell,
Speaker 1: which is French for flower of salt. And uh, it's
Speaker 1: not processed like table salt is. So you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a lot of those trace minerals. It's gonna be coarse
Speaker 1: and flaky, and it colors it too. It can for sure,
Speaker 1: like you can have white sea salt, pink black gray, yeah,
Speaker 1: or a combination of them. Pink salts are traditionally associated
Speaker 1: him Alayan salt um, and there the pink is often
Speaker 1: for the result of things like copper or iron or
Speaker 1: apparently um. There's a type that contains an algae, a
Speaker 1: salt tolerant algae, which would make it an extreme aphile um.
Speaker 1: That gives it has the beta caroteen pigment in it,
Speaker 1: and that gives it a pinkish hue at salt. You're
Speaker 1: eating algae, pink algae in your salt, which is pretty neat.
Speaker 1: That is pretty neat. And that that's Hawaiian, right, A
Speaker 1: lot of times Hawaii has a different one and all
Speaker 1: ala Oh I read that as algae. Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: too a couple of times, and I was like, why
Speaker 1: would they separate these two out? There's no g No,
Speaker 1: it's a Hawaiian Alaya salt has iron oxide in it
Speaker 1: from the volcanoes. Oh, that makes sense. And Hawaii also
Speaker 1: produces black salt too from the lava. Yeah, in a
Speaker 1: little bit of charcoal. I'll have to try some of
Speaker 1: those actually, and yeah, and then there's gray salts to um,
Speaker 1: which is Uh, there's cell gree which is from France.
Speaker 1: And then smoked salt is also gray where they just
Speaker 1: take some salt and smoke it. Yeah, they put it
Speaker 1: over a smoky fire and you have smoked salt. Do
Speaker 1: you like smoky foods sometimes? Yeah, it can be a
Speaker 1: little overbearing for me at times. Yeah, in the hands
Speaker 1: of you know, I guess somebody who knows what they're
Speaker 1: doing with the smoked It's like, I like a good
Speaker 1: smoked meat well day type of thing, but not necessarily
Speaker 1: like you know when they add like artificial smoke in
Speaker 1: the kitchen to it to a meal, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Although smoked cheese is good. Oh yeah, man,
Speaker 1: good smoke. Hey and thanks to fan Hillary Lozar from
Speaker 1: for sending us some great cheese. Yeah, that was very
Speaker 1: good to you. I had some of that smoked goody yesterday.
Speaker 1: Actually when I got home, I haven't had it yet.
Speaker 1: Is it good? And as soon as I walked in
Speaker 1: the door, I got a knife out. It's like I
Speaker 1: gotta try this stuff. Yeah's delicious anyway. Thanks Hilary's m
Speaker 1: hm so chefs and Gormond's will say. Sea salt is
Speaker 1: what you want to be using because you're gonna get
Speaker 1: a unique flavor from those minerals that are not in
Speaker 1: table salt. I agree with them, it's tough to bake
Speaker 1: with though. Yeah, it's tough to measure. You get a
Speaker 1: lot more precise measuring, for sure from table salt. And
Speaker 1: they don't recommend you bank with sea salt, no, because
Speaker 1: baking is a specific chemical reaction. Cooking is different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they say that they most chefs don't cook with sea salt,
Speaker 1: but they will just add it as a topper. But
Speaker 1: I've cooked with sea salt and have no plenty of
Speaker 1: chefs that cook with se salt, so I disagree with that. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: with the topper, they mean like it's a finishing salt.
Speaker 1: It brings out like all the flavors if you sprinkle
Speaker 1: it on the Yeah, I mean it's definitely right before
Speaker 1: you serve it. But I've also seen it used in
Speaker 1: the food right, So well, that leads us to kosher salt.
Speaker 1: Apparently some people like to cook with kosher salt. And
Speaker 1: if you are using following a recipe and you're switching
Speaker 1: out the whatever amounts of salt is called for, you
Speaker 1: want to double it because kosher salt is larger, coarse
Speaker 1: grained salt, and here to me is a fact of
Speaker 1: the podcast, one of several Kosher salt is not necessarily
Speaker 1: kosher itself. It's used to make things kosher. Didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I thought kasher salt was like salt that
Speaker 1: had been blessed by a rabbi or something. Really I
Speaker 1: never understood it, but now I do. It's it's salt
Speaker 1: they used to make things kosher. If you use table
Speaker 1: salt UH to make something kosher, it's not gonna work.
Speaker 1: Koash your salt because it's large and coarse grained. UH
Speaker 1: makes meat kosher by drawing the blood out because eating
Speaker 1: blood ain't kosher. So if you salt it with kosher salt,
Speaker 1: it's gonna draw the blood out of the meat, and
Speaker 1: bam you have a kosher cut of steak, baby boom.
Speaker 1: And it's not is either by the way. Um. And
Speaker 1: then we have the redheaded step child of the salt family,
Speaker 1: rock salt, which is used UM. It's got a lot
Speaker 1: of impurities, it's unrefined, it's very large grained, and it's
Speaker 1: used to melt ice on roads and sidewalks and to
Speaker 1: make homemade ice cream. Yeah, and probably some other stuff.
Speaker 1: But do you know of any other uses. I think
Speaker 1: rock salts used in um some chemical productions. That makes sense. Um,
Speaker 1: if you want to make a good industrial brine, rock
Speaker 1: salts your your man. Yeah, alright. Salt mining. That's how
Speaker 1: you get salt because it is a natural thing that
Speaker 1: exists in the earth. Um. The largest producer of salt
Speaker 1: these days, no surprise, is China. UM. In two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve they produced about sixty five million tons. The US
Speaker 1: is not too far behind it forty four million. Then
Speaker 1: you've got Germany, India and Australia as the other leading
Speaker 1: five salt producers these days. In India gets the profit
Speaker 1: from it salt production thanks to Gandhi. I guess so, huh,
Speaker 1: that's pretty neat. Didn't think about that their number four
Speaker 1: on the list. Yeah, they weren't even allowed to produce it,
Speaker 1: not so long ago. No, they were allowed to produce it,
Speaker 1: but all the money went to Yeah, okay jerks. So
Speaker 1: there's three types of mining main three main types. There's
Speaker 1: deep shaft mining, solar evaporation and solution mining. And deep
Speaker 1: shaft mining is basically like any other type of mining
Speaker 1: where you just um, drill a shaft down into a mine,
Speaker 1: which an underground seabed is what where the salt is, right,
Speaker 1: that's where you get your salt um. Yeah, that's I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the facts of the podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're ancient underground seabed, ancients beds that dried up and
Speaker 1: the salt remained and they form um these basically salt
Speaker 1: deposits that can be dozens or hundred defeat thick and
Speaker 1: massively wide. And you drill down into these things. You
Speaker 1: create a couple of shafts, and then they usually use
Speaker 1: what's called a room and pillar system, which really helps.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to explain, but if you see a
Speaker 1: picture of it, it makes perfect sense. But um, you're
Speaker 1: basically creating a checkerboard pattern you going down in mining
Speaker 1: the salt deposits, so you leave it right, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: blast a room, but you leave a couple of adjacent
Speaker 1: rooms for support, and then um, eventually you've you've mined
Speaker 1: out all the salt and then you fill it with
Speaker 1: industrial waste. That is one thing they do. So that's
Speaker 1: deep shaft mining. Yeah, and they'll remove the salt there
Speaker 1: and crush it and u haul it to the service
Speaker 1: and further process it from there, depending on what kind
Speaker 1: of salt you want in the end. Right. And there's
Speaker 1: this awesome mine UM called the Wheelishka Salt Mine in Cracow, Poland,
Speaker 1: and it has a full on cathedral made out of salt. Amazing.
Speaker 1: They have several like chapels, but then a full cathedral um.
Speaker 1: And it's all made of salts in this old salt
Speaker 1: mine that's not a UNESCO site UM. And they went
Speaker 1: to the trouble of boiling salt. It was a table
Speaker 1: salt mine. They would boil this raw salt and purify
Speaker 1: it and then use that purified salt to make crystal
Speaker 1: chandeliers out of salt. Like the whole cathedral is just salt.
Speaker 1: It's amazing looking, man. Yeah, check it out. No goats allowed,
Speaker 1: they would recap it or no chucks allowed. I just
Speaker 1: walk around like licking stuff. They would ask you nothing. Uh.
Speaker 1: A deep shaft mining, by the way, I think is
Speaker 1: usually rock salt is what they're producing there. Right. And
Speaker 1: then there's solution mining. Yeah, that's UM. Basically they take
Speaker 1: a well over a salt bed and then inject water
Speaker 1: in there and make a brine and then pump it
Speaker 1: up from the underground as as a wet solution and
Speaker 1: into a vacuum pan which is going to seal it up,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna boil it and then evaporate it, which
Speaker 1: is you know how they made salt back in the
Speaker 1: old days too, They would you know, boil it and
Speaker 1: evaporate it and then scrape the pan, so it's kind
Speaker 1: of a modern version of that. Then they dry it
Speaker 1: out and refine it, and then from there they're gonna
Speaker 1: either add anti clumping agents or iodine, depending on what
Speaker 1: you want. And then um, with solution mining, you've got
Speaker 1: like a salt bed or a salt dome that's exposed
Speaker 1: because it's somehow through tectonic action, uh, an ancient seabed
Speaker 1: or salt bed has been exposed to the above ground. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the surface of the earth. Right. And then what's
Speaker 1: the last one, Well, the old school solar method um
Speaker 1: solar evaporation. This is when you have a salt lake
Speaker 1: or seawater and wind in the sun cooperate with the
Speaker 1: shallow pools and they leave salt behind and you can
Speaker 1: only harvested about once a year once it reaches a
Speaker 1: certain level of harvest ability um of thickness and uh
Speaker 1: something like we said, sometimes it's still done by hand,
Speaker 1: even although it is industrialized in other places for sure.
Speaker 1: But you know, they wash it, they clean it, they
Speaker 1: drain it, but they leave the um a lot of
Speaker 1: impurities in there. And this stuff is almost pure sodium chloride.
Speaker 1: It's good stuff. And like I said, I used the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean version generally, but Australia is big on it too,
Speaker 1: on this method. And um, we should probably mention also
Speaker 1: that salt has a lot of religious significance. It's just
Speaker 1: a it's an ancient important thing to mankind. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: would like use it to seal important things. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: the Old Testament, which is pretty old. Uh. Lot's wife,
Speaker 1: I believe her name is Sarah. Was it Sarah Ruth
Speaker 1: who was married a Lot turned into a pillar of
Speaker 1: salt when she looked behind her, even though God said,
Speaker 1: don't turn around, I'll turn you into a pillar of
Speaker 1: salt out and she did. And apparently there's a there's
Speaker 1: a salt pillar at Mount ra rat Um that's called
Speaker 1: Lot's wife. People are like, that's her right there, and
Speaker 1: who who uh is it? Buddhists that board off evil
Speaker 1: with salt Yes, um Umi has a little shaker of
Speaker 1: salt that her mom put in her glove compartment of
Speaker 1: her car. Really like flickr off on the house, just
Speaker 1: a protector. Yeah that's nice. See I would have eaten it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's why I don't let you ride in Umi's car.
Speaker 1: That's right, one of several reasons they out of the
Speaker 1: glove bucks. You got anything else? I do? I have
Speaker 1: this good thing. And there's a Roman senator named Cassio
Speaker 1: Doors and he said quote, mankind can live without gold,
Speaker 1: but not without salt. Who is that Cassio key boartists? Yet?
Speaker 1: Well you got Jerry again. Yeah, she's giggly today. And
Speaker 1: I have a plug because here in Atlanta, there's a
Speaker 1: a lady who makes uh salts. But if you go
Speaker 1: to Facebook and type in beautiful briny sea salt, go
Speaker 1: to her Facebook page and click on the about thing,
Speaker 1: you will see her lovely homemade, handcrafted salts. And my
Speaker 1: favorite is the magic Unicorn. See if this sounds good,
Speaker 1: Sea salt is of course the main ingredient smoked paprika, lemon, garlic, rosemary,
Speaker 1: and celery seed. Well it does sound good, it's delicious.
Speaker 1: You get some broccoli and some cauliflower, some like beats
Speaker 1: and big chunks of garlic. Throw it out the window.
Speaker 1: And buy a steak and put this magical unicorn on
Speaker 1: it some olive oil, sprinkle it with this stuff, bake
Speaker 1: it in the oven. Delicious to go with that steak,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, magic unicorn is my favorite. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the black truffle salt is delicious. And then she has
Speaker 1: one called camp fire, which is smoked salt with cumin
Speaker 1: and anto chili powder. And uh. If you email info
Speaker 1: at Beautiful Briny Sea sawt dot com, you can order
Speaker 1: some of this stuff of you. And I told Emily
Speaker 1: she's a friend, or as I said, tell her, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna plugger, so she better get her little fingers working,
Speaker 1: you know, nice start making some salt. Yeah, because the
Speaker 1: stuff you should army is a salty crowd. So if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about salt, I don't know
Speaker 1: how you possibly could, but if you want to look
Speaker 1: into it, you can type the word as a LT
Speaker 1: into the search bar how stuff works dot com and
Speaker 1: it will bring up this article how salt works. And
Speaker 1: since I said search part, that means it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail. I'm gonna call this. We should apologize to cops.
Speaker 1: What do we do now? Well, this cop rot in
Speaker 1: and it well, I'll just read it. Is it? The
Speaker 1: police chase is one? Yeah? Yeah, they didn't like that one.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, my name is Glenn. I'm a police officer
Speaker 1: in southern California. I've been enjoying the podcast for years.
Speaker 1: I suspect our political leanings made different times, but I
Speaker 1: always enjoy learning and listening to different points of view.
Speaker 1: Listen to the December Sehunt podcast. That's not the police
Speaker 1: chase one. You're right, but I think it involves something
Speaker 1: like that. I felt it was very accurate, with the
Speaker 1: exception of some information you provided about the l A
Speaker 1: p D. Um. We've bashed the l a p D
Speaker 1: before for their history of corruption. They have a pretty
Speaker 1: thick history of corruption, but they're not all bad ladies
Speaker 1: and men. Well, no, of course not. Um. You mentioned
Speaker 1: that officers were super jumpy during the man hunt for
Speaker 1: Christopher Dorner, which was a fair assessment. But here's where
Speaker 1: you got something kind of wrong. Um. You stated that
Speaker 1: the l a p D fired on two uninvolved vehicles.
Speaker 1: It was the l A p D who shot at
Speaker 1: one in the Torrents Police Department shot at the other
Speaker 1: I could see how someone not from the area might
Speaker 1: think they were l A p D. So it's not
Speaker 1: the big of a deal. However, the bigger mistake is
Speaker 1: that you stated that these shootings killed two people. Nobody
Speaker 1: was killed, so I need to go back. I saw
Speaker 1: in several places that at least two people were killed. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: accidentally from those shootings. I'll go back and look again. Okay,
Speaker 1: but Glenn Josh takes issue, Sir, Well, he's not the
Speaker 1: only one who's written in I just haven't gotten around
Speaker 1: going back and looking and double checking. But I mean,
Speaker 1: while we were researching, I came across that, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't like on a forum or message board or something.
Speaker 1: I think they were in articles. Okay, well, well we'll
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of it. Uh he was, Glenn says,
Speaker 1: I'm very surprised you would make such a statement without
Speaker 1: doing your own work. I did my homework. You typically
Speaker 1: appear to go to great links to fact check. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you get the feeling you guys are not the biggest
Speaker 1: fans of law enforcement. Um not. And I even recognize
Speaker 1: my professions shortcomings for sure, just like you, though I
Speaker 1: want facts um influencing the show, not personal opinions, and
Speaker 1: this email was not intended to justify the actions of
Speaker 1: those two police departments. Just to set the record straight. Understood,
Speaker 1: And despite the goof and the cop bashing ha ha,
Speaker 1: I still love the show. That's from Glenn Um and Glenn,
Speaker 1: I don't hate cops. I love cops. Um. We've done
Speaker 1: a lot of like super supportive shows on Law Enforced.
Speaker 1: My name talks like the law enforcement dude. But I
Speaker 1: don't like jerks, and I think a lot of times
Speaker 1: people's experience with cops or when they're pulled over and
Speaker 1: not being helped by a cop, which is unfortunate because
Speaker 1: they do so much great work. But you know, when
Speaker 1: you get pulled over and you're hassled by a jerk cop,
Speaker 1: you think, Man, what a jerk cop. It's like eating
Speaker 1: at a bad restaurant, you know what I'm saying. Like
Speaker 1: a restaurants bad. You tell one or two people you
Speaker 1: have a bad experience at a restaurant, you tell like
Speaker 1: twenty people. It's like fifty fold with cops. So we
Speaker 1: have a lot of respect for law enforcement for sure,
Speaker 1: for all they do. So I hope that doesn't across,
Speaker 1: come across is any differently? Nice? Check? Yeah, thanks Glenn, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you Glenn. I'll go back in double check. If
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, I'll admit it. I just haven't had a
Speaker 1: chance to look again. We'll give him twenty licks off
Speaker 1: of a block of sault from a goat, and I
Speaker 1: might die of hyper natremia. Man. That wrapped it all
Speaker 1: up right there. If you want to get in touch
Speaker 1: with me and chuck to correct us, take issue with
Speaker 1: something we said, whatever um, you can tweet to us
Speaker 1: at s y s K podcast. You can join us
Speaker 1: on Facebook dot com, slash do you Should Know? You
Speaker 1: can send us an email to stuff Podcasts at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com, and as always, hang out with
Speaker 1: us at our home on the web. Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know dot Com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.