Did you know that the salt you’re using to cook with is older than the earth itself? That’s right, the first evidence of salt mining was found in southwest Asia around 6500 B.C.

Salt, the scientific name “chloride,” is composed of sodium and chlorine. Together, they make up the compound “NaCl” (sodium chloride). The majority of salt comes from the ocean, where it was once dissolved in water as part of the Earth’s primitive oceans. Over time, glaciers formed, which pushed this mixture downward, causing high pressure to create what we know as “salt mines.”

The word ‘salary’ is derived from the root ‘sal’, which means salt. The money earned by Roman soldiers was called a “salarium” or payment of salt. This exact origin is behind our words ‘sauce’ and ‘sausage,’ both shortened forms of the Latin verb meaning to salt “salire.”

Salt’s preservative powers are what gave it its place in history. It helped preserve meat for early explorers, fed armies of Rome, and was used as currency throughout the world. Salt was traded by weight because it was challenging to measure volume at the table.

Today, most salt comes from massive deposits left behind by dried salt lakes. While it may be challenging to imagine huge salt mountains, some deposits are 100 feet high and span 20-30 miles wide.

Salt is present in the body of every living thing and our bodies need a small amount of it to survive. Sodium and chlorine are two minerals that the body needs to work correctly, but too much salt can be dangerous since it leads to high blood pressure and water retention.

However, salt is just as vital outside the body as inside. Salt keeps our roads safe for driving by melting ice and snow in the wintertime. It keeps our lawns safe for walking in the summertime by melting the ice that forms when the temperature gets too cold.

Salt is also used to protect from water damage, like wooden structures and clothing. It can even be found in drinking water after being treated to kill disease-causing bacteria.

Salt’s uses also include adding iodine to the water supply to protect people from diseases like a goiter caused by too little iodine. Another benefit of salt is to make water unsuitable for drinking by raising its salinity with regular table salt, which contains about 95% sodium chloride and 5% additives like iodine or anti-caking chemicals.

Salt is also used in cooking, preserving food, and manufacturing items like soap. Students learn about the three states of matter in chemistry class: solid, liquid, and gas. You can see all three conditions at work when salt is added to a puddle of water on the sidewalk. The salt dissolves into tiny particles called ions that spread out across the surface of the puddle.

This helps make the water molecules spread out not to stick together (why ice cubes are slippery). If you’ve ever made homemade ice cream, then you’ll know that salt can lower the freezing point of water even more than regular table salt! So if too much salt gets into your ice cream, it’ll be hard to keep the ingredients together – just like how it’s hard for anything to stay together in freezing water!

Some other ways that salt affects our planet are by crumbling up roads during springtime thawing, making them safe for driving again. Salt can also get into the drinking water because of pollution, so people worldwide are trying to reduce salt use to make water safer for drinking.