WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Salt Works 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:03.960 Hello everybody, Charles W. Chuck Bryant Here on a lovely 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.040 Saturday morning in Atlanta, Georgia. We're going back in time 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:10.879 to February fourteen to talk about salt. Our episode How 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.560 Salt Works is one of my all time favorites. I 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.119 love salt because I'm from the South. Probably like a 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.320 little too much, he asked my doctor. But that salty 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.560 salty goodness on food just makes it all pop for me. 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.239 But it has a really cool, interesting backstory. How you 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.720 get salt, a harvest salt and how salt works on food? 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:33.360 Learn all about it right now. Welcome to Stuff You 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:42.480 Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.160 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.320 Charles W. Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff you Should 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.639 Know the podcast. Oh yeah, Jerry's over there. She's all 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:56.240 laughy today for some reason. An old salty dogs. Why 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.760 did salty calling someone salty? I wonder where that came from. 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:02.600 I meant to look that up. That's the one I'm 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.240 did in the book. Cut because you know you're in 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:09.280 a salty mode. Yeah, I've said that plenty And what 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.160 if that comes from like a salty dog. Here's here, 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:16.520 this is this is my idea. So salty describe somebody 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:18.759 who is a little coarse, a little rough around the edges, 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:24.280 a little upset. Hear me out because their face is 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:29.319 usually puckered into like a a sour puss face. And 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.880 what makes your face pucker eating salt. So there's a 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.880 salty person. Okay, I would call them lemony. Well, so 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.720 take something with a grain of salt. It's actually ancient. 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.920 That's from the romans Um. They would take poison with 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:45.760 a grain of salt. There's something that was hard to 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:47.920 swallow with a grain of salt to make it go 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.520 down more easily. Okay, let's go ahead and cover these. 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:54.720 Then somebody not being worth their salt. In this article 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.720 it says that um slaves were traded with salt, and 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.880 if you got your hands on like a slave that 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.360 wasn't worth much Like that, he wasn't worth his salt? 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.600 Is that not the origin I found? The first reference 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.160 in print came from an eighteen oh five description or 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.080 book about an expedition to Guinea Bissau, and it mentions 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.880 a guy who wasn't worth his salt. He's a good 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:22.160 man Peter Hale h a y eli um. But he 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.360 wasn't worth his salt, the guy said. And I looked 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.640 it up, and I couldn't find that whether Hale was 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:33.040 hired or was a slave. But I got the impression that, Um, 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.280 what the guy was talking about wasn't that he had 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.480 traded salt for hail, but not worth a salt like 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.560 in his body. No, he was not worth the salt, 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.000 meaning a salary, which supposedly salary is rooted in the 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:50.560 idea of paying someone in salt, same with soldiers salt 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.720 dre and to give salt salad to the word salad 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:59.639 comes from the word salt, so salt is a it's 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:05.120 a an important thing. Historically speaking, there's been economies largely 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.200 based on salt. There have been um cultures rated by 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:15.359 other cultures because of salt. UM. If you were an 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:21.040 ancient salt producing area, probably the rulers controlled with the 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:26.560 tight grip um that salt production and salt distribution UM. 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:31.040 And that actually carried on into the modern age when 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.600 the when Great Britain was occupying India, they had a 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:38.560 tight control on salt production there UM and actually Gandhi 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:43.760 started a revolution or helped along the revolution to overthrow 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.920 British imperial power through a salt protest. He walked two 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.040 d and forty miles to the coast where the salt 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:56.040 production facilities were and grabbed a bit of salty clay 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.160 and boiled it, boiled the salt out of it, which 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:03.200 was an illegal act. That protests burred other similar protests, 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:07.000 and the British were like, oh, hey, you can't do that, mate, 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.200 you can't mind your own salt. But he did because 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.200 he was Gandhi. It was called the Salt March to 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:18.920 Dandhee by g by Gandhi. Uh. Yeah, salt dates back 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.640 to b C. And they actually found evidence of salt 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:27.960 trading in prehistoric times. So obviously it's used to spice 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.599 food is great, but it's used to preserve food was 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.800 super valuable, yeah, back in the day and still today 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.760 because salt is one of these things. You remember, Nature 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.680 loves homeostasis, It loves balance. If you introduced salt to 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.479 the mix, it kind of throws off that balance. So 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:48.240 to gain homeo stasis, salt is introduced into say meat. 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.000 It likes to go into the meat, but it also 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.440 draws out the moisture. Whether it's blood water whatever. So 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.880 it dries out the meat, it introduces the salt, and 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.640 it draws out the moisture. That's right. That's called curing, 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.880 which preserves things because anytime bacteria comes in contact with 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:09.160 that salty meat, from that point on the bacteria boom 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.640 gets dried out and dies. Yeah, that's why packaged foods 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.719 are still loaded with sodium. Unfortunately, I got some stuff 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.080 on that later. But it was used as a currency 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.760 in Ethiopia up until the twentieth century, and was used 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.200 as a form of suicide in China for nobility. They 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.920 would o d on salt and kill themselves because it 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.960 was expensive and very valuable, so nobility, that's like, it 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:37.720 was like a noble way to go out. And we'll 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:39.560 talk in a minute, like what happens when you have 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.120 too much salt. It's not very pleasant. It's not very pleasant. 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:44.440 But you know, in medieval Europe, remember we did the 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.520 ten Medieval Torture Devices episode, Well we skipped one called 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.960 the goats tongue, and it was apparently a real thing, 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.839 a tickle torture. They would dip your feet bringing a 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.720 goat and the goat would lick the bottom of your 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.680 feet and then they would dip it again. And from 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.520 that in the art description, No, I'm saying like it 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:10.800 wasn't in there. Um from the description, apparently being tortured 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.240 tickle tortured was not pleasant. I would love to have 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.920 my feet licked by a goat. They would do it 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.640 until you did not love it. That was the point 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.920 of the goat's tongue to it. Sounds like fun to me. Uh. 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.520 In the Middle Ages, salt was transported along the notorious 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.800 Old Salt Route and northern Germany. I know what I'm 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.839 gonna get you for Christmas, now, a goat in some 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.520 salt water. I've had both at the same time. I 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.960 don't know, I didn't think about it. Uh. It was 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.400 played his big role in early America as well. Massachusetts 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.960 Bay Colony had the first pattern to produce salt here 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.400 in the colonies, saltwater in the comonies, and uh they 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.080 did so for two hundred years. Uh. The Erie Canal 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:55.320 opened primarily to transport salt. Yeah, they called it the 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.760 ditch that salt built. It sounds like something you just 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.360 made up. No, I swear I've been on the Erie Canal. 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.080 Oh yeah, yeah, they they have this nice system of locks, 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.800 and um, they used to there's still like donkey trails 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.119 from where the donkeys used to pull these little flat 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.000 bottom boats that would carry salt and whatnot. And now 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.440 yuppies walk along those trails. Dog yuppies? Are there still yuppies? 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:25.200 Oh yeah, thanks, Yeah, I heard one the other day. 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:32.040 Uh dual income, large dog owner. Al Right. In the 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.680 early eight hundred, salt was apparently four times expensive as 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.400 beef because salt was valuable obviously, and we were allows 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.760 you with beef. And in Civil War, salt played a 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.520 big part in the Union strategy. Um, there were quite 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:49.240 a few battles fault over capturing salt works and salt mines. 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:54.120 Yeah in Saltville, Virginia. Yeah, what they do there. And 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.600 it actually had a big effect on the salt shortage 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.760 on the Confederate troops. Yeah, not just the troops, but 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.280 the people behind the lines back in the Confederate States 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:03.960 were like, we want our salt. And it had a 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.040 huge impact on morale apparently, I would say so. And 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.520 the reason why salt is so important. If you haven't 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.400 gotten the impression that it is important by now, you 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.000 should rewind the podcast and just listen to the last 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:19.200 several minutes over again. Salt is extraordinarily important because the 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.960 human body requires it. It's something that we need to 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.840 survive and to live, so much so that we actually 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:31.960 have a taste sense for it. Yeah, it's the only 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:36.199 you don't need better to live or sour or umami. 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.079 As a matter of fact, things like bitter and sour 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.439 are there. I think to detect things that we shouldn't 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.280 be eating, salt is to detect something we need that's right, 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:49.560 and we can. Actually this is so mind blowing to me. 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.199 I love the human body. I think it's amazingly wonderful 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:55.840 in ways that we don't even fully understand yet. But 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.480 consider this, When you need salt, your body produces a 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:04.280 craving in you for salt. That is awesome. Like I'm 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:07.480 one of those believers. I I don't follow it necessarily myself, 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:09.839 but in a diet, well no, I think about it. 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:14.720 In a diet where you just eat what you crave. 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:17.360 I think you can go off the rails because I 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.000 think that we uh have the wrong things now. Yes, now, 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:23.800 but if you could go back a hundred fifty years, 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.599 maybe I would bet you could survive pretty easily and 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.800 thrive on a diet where you were just kind of 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:32.760 led by your cravings, like, oh, I need some megs 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.400 and eat a couple of eggs, steak. You don't know. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.800 You should pay attention to yourself, listen to what your 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:42.920 body is telling you, and I'll bet you find that 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:46.680 you do have specific cravings for specific moods, foods that 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.960 are like very simple, like meat like chuck go eat 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:55.320 a steak, Chuck go eat some eggs, like things that 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.320 are basic staples. I'll bet you'll notice you have cravings salt. Uh, 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.240 let's let's break it down chemically. Um, it's sodium and 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.280 chlorine are the two basic elements. And salt, I think 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.719 we all know this, which are electrolytes. That's right, and 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.640 we'll get into that in a minute. Um, sodium is 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.160 silvery white metal, and it is neither one of these 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:19.240 are like super friendly independently of one another. No, you know, 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:23.160 like especially chlorine. Yeah, sodium reacts violently if you mix 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.280 it with water and oxidizes in air. Chlorine exists in 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.120 gas at a room temperature. They're both really volatile. But 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.840 when you put them together and you have sodium chloride, 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:38.760 they make beautiful music. Makes beautiful halite, uh and beautiful music. 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:43.400 And sodium chloride is about a sixt sodium to chloride, 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.680 by the way, is that right? Yeah? Nice? It makes 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:52.240 little cubes, right, Yeah? Is it? The molecules are cubicle, right. 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:57.000 The sodium packs in pretty tight, and then the chlorine 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.920 fills in the rest and they make tiny little cubes. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.920 It's actually reversed, That's what I said. Yeah, the chloride 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.400 is packed and then the sodium fills in. But you know, 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.840 I would have thought the sodium was bigger. Oh well, um, 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:13.920 but what you have is n a c L that's right. 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.360 And you mentioned electrolytes. Those are minerals that conduct electricity 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:19.800 in our body and our fluids and tissues, which is 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.200 very important, super important. Like a muscle movement, we run 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:29.640 on electricity. Heart, Yeah, involuntary muscle. Um moves through electrical impulse. 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.000 I guess all muscles do. Yeah. You want your eyes 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.720 to blank, buddy, Yeah, eat some salt. Right, And so 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.000 there's two conditions that you can have conceivably, well three, 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.680 three would be just all systems are normal. But um, 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.200 the other two is too little salt and too much salt. 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.240 And too little salt is called hypo atrema. Yeah, that's 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.200 what that lady died of the Hold your Way for 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.960 a Week contest. Oh is that right? Yeah? Yeah, you 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.920 can o d on water, and I guess that's what 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.760 you would ultimately die from as hypo into tremea their 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.200 water toxicity. Um, if you have too much water, you 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.160 probably have too little salt, because water flush is salt 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.160 from your system. It's the method that your kidneys use 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:15.720 to maintain the balance of salt and other electrolytes in 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.000 your body. And that's why you might drink gatorade if 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.040 you're working out, because it has electrolytes in it, right, 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.600 exactly salty. You don't want to water your crop plan 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:25.600 with it, though, no, no no, no, As we found from 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.760 the movie Idiocracy. Yeah, and I actually found too that 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.280 in the nineteen eighties there was a lot of controversy 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:36.880 over salting roads killing roadside vegetation. Well, yeah, for sure. 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.040 I mean like that, if you were into conquests and 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.240 that kind of thing, and you wanted to make sure 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.400 that the land you just occupied couldn't be used to 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.439 grow crops to feed an imposing armory army, you would 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.560 plow the land with salt. Salt the earth, Yeah, which 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.079 is not the salt of the earth, because that means 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.959 you're a good fellah, but not a good fella because 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.679 those guys are salty. Wow, look at you. That was 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:03.280 that of the team effort. Clever wordplay, my friend. Uh. 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.800 If you take diuretics um or you have like a 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.520 massive diarrhea for a period of days, or vomiting or 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:12.800 some sort of stomach bug, you might be at risk 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:17.200 for hyponatremia. Yeah, because you're flushing out all of this, 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.480 all of your electrolytes. Yeah. This is salt that your 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:22.640 body needs. So if it's out of balance, you're going 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.520 to suffer things like, um, well an inability for your 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:30.040 heart to beat, which is often fatal. Yeah, kidney problems yeah. Um. 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.080 On the other hand, you can have hypern atrema, which 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.400 is too much salt, and like you said, if you're 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:41.120 a Chinese aristocrat, um, you may die from hyperbern netrema. Yeah. 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:46.840 They even had a m man sometimes a blanket on 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.080 the word how to manual. Well, it's sort of like 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:51.200 how many grams of salt you needed per pound in 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.520 your body? That had like a chart. I guess if 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.320 you want to kill yourself in China, yours. You do it. 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.160 There's so much salt you need. But that was rough? 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.440 Is you like that? Yeah, I'm off today. I'm a 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.720 little off. You were on my my microphone just swerved 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.880 to the left. Were happening. There's a ghost in here. Um, 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:14.000 so too much sodium, I think you said already is 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:20.840 hypernatremia instead of hypo hyper hyper hypo exactly. It's like glacemia, 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.040 but with no tremia exactly, and with hyper in neutremia. Basically, 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:29.000 remember how salt if you um, if you introduce it 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.320 to say, a jerky of some sort, it will dry 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:36.160 it out or slug. Yes, it's just a shameful thing 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.720 to do. Don't do that. Um, if you introduce it 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:41.720 to a meat or something like that, it's going to 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:47.480 dry it out because through osmosis in search of homeostasis. UM, 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:49.200 it does the same thing to your blood and your 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:54.920 extracellular fluids. That salt will draw out the fluids in 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:59.800 your cells, but will maintain it in your blood. It's 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.920 why to retention. Basically, Yeah, your kidneys when it has 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:04.640 too much salt to deal with, kicks it around the 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.240 blood supply. Just like remember in the hangover episode when 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:12.160 you why drugs are so fatal when you drink a 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.280 lot of alcohol because your kidneys are trying to process 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.120 your the alcohol, so it keeps the drugs just going 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.960 around and around in your blood supply. Same thing with 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.040 too much salt. If your kidneys have too much to 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:26.920 deal with, they just keep the excess going around in 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.600 your blood. And since that salt is drawing out all 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.680 the excess moisture, it increases the volume of your blood, 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:37.160 which makes your blood pressure rise, which makes your heart beat, Yes, 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.920 which supposedly logically would put you at risk for a 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:43.960 stroke or heart attack, and that's how you would die 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:49.600 from hypernatremia, have high blood pressure. Well, supposedly sodium. Cutting 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.680 your sodium down isn't gonna help. Yeah, there's a lot 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.640 of conflicting data on that for sure. Um, well we'll 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:21.440 get to nutrition, so we'll cover that. M hm. So chuck. Um. 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.680 They're like you said, there's a lot of controversy over 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.160 how much salt or how little salt you should have 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.240 on a daily basis in your diet. Yeah. Um, the 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:36.640 Heart National Heart, Blood and Long Institute say no more 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.280 than two point four grams of sodium. It's about a 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.680 teaspoon per day. Americans, they found, consume an average of 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.280 about three point four per day, So that's one gram 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:51.240 too much on average, And um, you actually don't need 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.240 more than about a half a gram a day if 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:57.040 you want to maintain that stasis. So yeah, just for 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.640 your electro lighte intake. The thing is, though, um, there 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.040 was for many years because it makes sense that if 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.400 you're if too much salt increases your blood pressure, then 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.760 too much salt should be um, should put you at 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.000 risk for strokes and heart attacks. Right. Well, the CDC 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:19.199 panel surveyed material and all and all all sorts of 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:25.040 studies that found no, cutting your sodium intake doesn't really 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.320 doesn't decrease your risk of heart attack or stroke. And 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:31.639 as a matter of fact, there is was it just 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.800 more hereditary? They don't know what it is. They just 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:38.879 know that basically below three thousand grams or three thousand 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:44.919 milligrams of salt and above seven thousand milligrams of salt 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.920 a day were two groups that were at higher risk 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.080 of heart attack. So if you have too little salt, 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.679 you're at higher risk of heart attack to Okay, so 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:57.240 try to keep it between three thousand and four thousand 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.639 milligrams thousand and seven thousand. The thing is is they 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.880 they don't They weren't comfortable making any recommendation. They were 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:07.479 just everyone scared. This is what we found. Everyone's scared, like, 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.000 go on the record, Yeah, because we just don't know. Like, 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:11.679 it doesn't make any sense that you would have a 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.119 heart attack if you ate less than three grams of 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:16.960 sault today. Yeah. That that flies in the face of 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.280 of um conventional wisdom, and nobody's figured out why yet. Interesting, Well, 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:23.439 it's something you should monitor at the very least, because 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.200 I think a lot of people look at fat grams 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.160 and calories and all that stuff is great to look 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:32.159 at nutritionally, but um, when you start poking around on 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.720 the soup can and you see, wow, this chicken noodle 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:40.480 soup has milligrams of sodium, but it's so good. And 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.880 this one little can which is almost a gram of sodium, 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.399 yeah close to it. A quarter pounder with bacon and cheese. 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.359 You didn't do Big Max. No, I should have been communist. 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:53.639 I think big Max. Actually I did see. This is 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.639 forty milligrams a big mac. I think was around eleven 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:03.840 pounders more with the bacon. I think they have like 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:08.280 a whole bacon onion ranch or something topping that you 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.600 can put on quarter pounders. Now I've not yet tried this, 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:13.600 but like I think about it from time to time, 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.800 like right now, yeah, right now especially, uh So, at 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.040 any rate, just give it a look. Like soups are 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:24.160 notoriously high in sodium. Package foods are notoriously high in sodium. Um, 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:26.760 don't just think about the table salt that you use, Like, oh, 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:28.639 I didn't salt my food that much today? You need 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:30.680 a lot of package food or eating a lot of sodium. Yeah, 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:32.639 and nobody can tell you how much you should be 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.040 eating or shouldn't be eating. But like you said, it's 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:36.880 good to just pay attention to that kind of thing 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:39.960 because you probably are eating a lot more than you realize, 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:41.720 and you should be meat in a lot of package food. Anyway, 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:46.119 I'll just go ahead and say that, so, um, chuck, Yes, 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.880 what kinds of salt are there? Well, first of all, 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.040 I should say I love salt. Salt and pepper are 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.560 my favorite two spices. I'm from the South, have a 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:01.520 taste for salt um and pork fat. Yeah that's pretty 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.879 southern too, Yeah for sure. Uh So, I love salt. 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.479 I like good Mediterranean sea salt. That's what I used 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:12.320 at my house. Uh, and I'm gonna plug this local saltier. 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:17.480 I just made that word up oh later in the show. Okay, 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.600 but um, I'm a big salt fan. I like salt too, 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:24.280 I like sweet, I like ummmy, I like um sour. 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:28.800 I'm training myself to like bitter through the use of kompari. Yeah. 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.879 Like I I've found out that I'm a bitter super taster. 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:35.720 So like things that seem like normal to other people 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:42.280 are like really bitter to me. Like one example, grapefruit. Yeah, 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.080 but it's like like disgustingly bitter to me. Like I 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.440 can't understand how the rest of humanity eats grape fruit. 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:49.600 I don't like grapefruit. Well, maybe you're a bitter super 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.240 taster too, But I have to tell you this. I've 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:57.399 trained myself to like um, grapefruit and kompari just by exposure, 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.119 like I've come to appreciate them. With campari, it's a 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:05.639 bar like a bitter digestif for Apertif you do like 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.159 a campari and soda, it's in a negrowning right. Oh. 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.200 I think I've seen people like if their stomachs upset 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.000 or is that bitters and soda? Well, campari is a 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:17.400 type of bitters. It's not that super compact bitters like angustura, 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:19.880 but it is a type of bitter. I think it's 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.840 a digestif. Okay, it's good stuff anyway. I like salt. 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.760 What I'm really saying there is I like well seasoned food. 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.080 And if you're a chef or a home chef, you 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.159 know that salt is important to cooking, super important and 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:38.200 baking obviously, but bland food can't do it. No, what's 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:43.080 the point. What is the point? Agreed types of salt. 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.720 Let's start with table salt and and look, man, if 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:49.800 you're if your doctor put you on like a bland 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.600 food diet, I feel for you. But there's stuff out 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.920 there you can eat. There's Spike, there's Mrs Dash, there's 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.760 you should be seasoning your food to some extent like 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:03.960 bland food is, like it's bland life. Yeah. They even 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.639 had the imitation salt to the new in New Salt. 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:10.359 I didn't do any research on that, but I've bought 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.119 it before. You do you like it? I didn't use 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:16.400 it that much, but it's it exists. In my home 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.120 thanks to the empty thing of Mediterranean sea salt. Yeah, 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:23.199 all right, it's the table salts, the first one we 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:28.280 should cover. That's the traditional um either iodized or non iodized, 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:33.639 fine grained salt that you see in many, many homes 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:36.720 and restaurants, and it's IDEs. They did a little research 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.199 into this. Did you look up iodie salt? Yeah, well, 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:42.480 I mean I know that they they added it because 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.880 at one point it was sort of like fluoride. They thought, well, 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:47.760 we need this in a good place to put us 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:50.480 in salt. Yeah, because most people use salt, and we'll 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:52.920 just put it into table salt because it's an easy additive. 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:57.520 But um, there was a real problem with hyper thyroidism, 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:02.359 things like Goiter's mental retardi shan um just poor fetal 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:08.040 development linked to um iodine deficiency. So they put it 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:12.560 in salt, and apparently there it's considered to be responsible 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:15.399 for this thing called the Flynn effect, which there was 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:18.120 like a three i Q point rise in the middle 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:22.200 of the twentieth century in western nations, and nobody could 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:23.879 figure out what it is, and they think now that 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:27.239 it was because they added iodine as salt, and so 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:30.639 it had the aggregate effect of raising our i Q 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:35.960 by um preventing poor fetal development. Yeah. Well, it's still 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:37.720 a problem in other parts of the world, just not 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:40.200 here in North America, right, other parts of the world 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:42.680 that don't have idi salt. You know, dumb they are. 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.239 Oh man, that was terrible. I'm just kidding. You need 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:47.880 to apologize to the rest of the world for I'm 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:51.240