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Table Salt – Why is it So Much Boring?

Salt has played an important role in our lives ever since the early days of human civilization. Most of us are conversant with the fact that salt can be used to season our food and salt lamps are a popular decoration in the rooms of most homes. But did you know that salt actually has its own set of advantages? We would, in this article, look into just why salt is beneficial. We would also look into the different types of salt and where they come from. After reading this article, you would be able to come up with an appropriate usage of salt in your kitchen.

First of all, it has been found out that salt has a lot of health benefits. One of them is its ability to lower blood pressure. Sodium is found to be very effective in lowering high blood pressure since it increases the volume of blood in the vessels. It also reduces the amount of fluid retention in the body.

Second, salt is one of the oldest remedies to control high blood pressure. It was used as early as the 2nd millennium BC by ancient people in China, India, Tibet and Nepal. They used salt as a cure for various ailments including hypertension. Salt even became a symbol of wealth in some ancient cultures. Thus, many wealthy people used salt to make themselves look rich.

Third, salt is a type of soluble compound. Compounds having a larger molecular weight than water are called ions. All compounds which are in solids have the ability to interact with each other and to form various chemical reactions. The simplest example of such a compound is water. Water and its ions have a great function in our bodies. The ions in salt form compounds with different electronegativities or affinity for electrically charged parts of the body.

Fourth, salt is a negatively charged, ionic compound. The most common salt is sodium chloride. This salt consists of two positive ions and two negative ions. Positively ionized salt can easily dissolve in water, as we have learned. But negatively ionized salt does not dissolve in water, because the two protons of sodium chloride become unbalanced with the energy difference between them: the negative charge makes the protons fall to the ground while the positive charge stays at the top of the sodium chloride crystal.

Another example of ionic compounds are sulfates. These compounds consist of three positive ions and three negative ones. Common examples of sulfate ions are salt, soda ash, and the salt of phenol. Like sodium chloride, the sulfates can dissolve in water. But unlike sodium chloride, they are much less soluble in various organic solvents, most importantly chlorinated solutions.

And the salt of phenol has something interesting going for it: its chemical compound, a covalent bond with an element. If the salt of phenol does not dissolve in water, you may be sure that the covalent bond between the salt and the element is not strong enough. Therefore, a salt of phenol is useless as a compound of salt or a salt alternative. The covalent bond is just too weak. So, this salt is just as useless as table salt.

Now, I am not saying that salt is completely useless. Sodium chloride is actually very useful as a chemical compound, especially as sodium silicate (a salt of sulfuric acid) and as red salt. As a matter of fact, people have been using salt for medical purposes since ancient times, and it has even been used for the production of white blood cells. But none of that stuff matters much if you don’t take care of your salt…