SC - Re: SALT (fwd)

[Laura C Minnick]

Greetings, all!

	I noticed that the water/salt/gatorade issues seem to be showing
up again, so when this cam up on ANSAX and Michell posted, I saved them.
There are three messages- I will just post them one after another. They
are very useful info about salt and the biology of what it does in our
bodies and on our food. Michelle is a microbiologist who works on
Anglo-Saxon digs and such, and usually had very interesting things to say
to a bunch of pendantic text-warriors.
	I hope you can appreciate what she has to say as much as I do!

this is #1 of 3

'Lainie
- -
Laura C. Minnick
- -
'A Vaillans Coeurs Riens Impossible'
- -
"Libraries have been the death of many great men, particularly the
Bodleian."
	Humfrey Wanley, c. 1731




- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 14:47:27 EDT
From: Michelle Ziegler <MichelleZi at AOL.COM>
Reply-To: ANSAXNET Discussion Forum <ANSAX-L at WVNVM.WVNET.EDU>
To: ANSAX-L at WVNVM.WVNET.EDU
Subject: Re: SALT

Finally something I can contribute on!

In a message dated 7/23/99 11:40:28 PM, clarkg at POST.QUEENSU.CA writes:

>        A microbiologist visited me recently and told me that indeed there
>is no need for salt in the diet if one has a normal diet.  The one danger
>is that you may go short of iodine which is supplied by some salt (but
>not by Maldon sea salt, hence it can't be imported into Canada, alas).

This is true for a modern diet which is heavily processed.  Even bacterial
media requires the addition of some salt. You are in danger of iodine
deficiency only if you do not eat shell fish.  An occasional lobster or clam
will give you plenty of iodine.

>        The salter in AElfric's colloquy insists you can't enjoy meat,
>sweets, or vegetables without salt (false advertising) but rightly points
>out that without salt (or iceboxes) butter and cheese will spoil and that
>it will prove impossible to fill one's pantry / cellar or storehouse
>without the use of salt (as a preservative).

Not quite false advertising.  The human tongue can only recognize 6 tastes:
Sour, Sweet, Bitter, SALT, metallic and alkaline. Everything you eat
registers in your brain as a combination of the stimulation of these 6 taste
receptors and smell. Smell is nearly 50% of your perception of taste. Sour,
bitter, metallic and probably alkaline are there mostly to protect you from
poisoning yourself. That leaves only Sweet and Salt as, for lack of a better
term, pleasurable tastes (in an evolutionary sense). We are not alone in our
liking of salt.  Japanese monkeys will pass up fresh water to wash their food
in sea water because they like their food salty.  If you think of the
Anglo-Saxon diet, the importance of these two commodities becomes all the
more important.  Most of their food was probably quite bland and salt was a
definite improvement....they couldn't go to the local market to pick up
spices. Sweets must have come from only honey which explains why bees were so
important. Since a considerable amount of honey must have gone into mead that
probably didn't leave much left for regular cooking. <g> The only other
potentially sweet source that I can think of is maybe wine and maybe milk.  I
guess that would make their drink primarily sweet and their food primarily
salty, under optimal conditions.

 As my scientific friend
>observes, salt binds the free water in the preserved food so bacteria
>can't live in it and even if some water is present, the bacteria can't
>metabolize the salt (as they can sugar) and then attack the food.

Yes, salt can dehydrate food but that is not the main way it preserves it.
Salt is toxic to most bacteria because it disrupts their osmotic balance. It
dehydrates them ....Not their food source. (Osmosis = the net flow of water
from a region of low solute concentration to a region of high solute
concentration. Solutes are any molecules present in a liquid/water. ) Most
bacteria can't grow in salty LIQUID (even if it has plenty of nutrients). The
outside environment has more solutes that the bacteria does so the water from
the bacteria's body flows outside and they dehydrate. The bacteria that live
on human skin has specially evolved to just to tolerate the small amount of
salt in our sweat. (In fact, one of the primary tests for Staphylococcus
(Staph.) infections is: can the organism grow on a salt media.)

Have you ever wondered why your honey and syrup doesn't spoil?  You do leave
it out at room temperature from months and bacteria love to eat sugar just
like we do......

The answer is the same reason salt works to preserve food. The high sugar
content in honey (and syrup) creates an osmotic gradient which dehydrates any
organism that finds itself in the honey. The type of solute doesn't matter,
sugar or salt.

(A great microbiology test question ! <g>)

Note that the bacteria in both cases are not necessarily killed!  They can't
grow and that's not the same as dead.  Bacteria have evolved mechanisms like
spores that help them weather out such environments so they can later "wake
up" in your gut. About 10 years ago there were several cases of Sudden Infant
Death Syndrome (SIDS) in babies fed "natural" baby food.  All these baby
foods had honey added.  Botulism spores survive honey quite well and they
"woke up" in an anaerobic (oxygen lacking) pocket in the babies gut, produced
a few toxin molecules, and then died as they passed into an aerobic (oxygen
containing) part of the gut.  A few botulism toxin molecules is enough to
kill an infant (or an adult). Adults are not vulnerable to botulism spores in
honey because our gut is completely aerobic (oxygen containing) but an infant
gut has small pockets of anaerobic conditions as their normal flora (bacteria
that normally live in the gut) are establishing themselves.  Why people who
made this (commercial) so called "natural" baby food favored honey to table
sugar is beyond me....... but "natural" foods are a rant for another day.<g>

>
>The salt trade in ancient times is based on the need to preserve food, not
>for the diet.  People who get used to salty food may think it's needful,
>but it's not.  One pound of Maldon sea salt (with the losses from one bad
>spill) has kept me for a decade and there's still some left.
>
>George

Whoa George!  That's not quite true either.  It depends on where you live.
If you live in Egypt or a similar environment you need salt to survive and
not dehydrate yourself.  Salt is necessary for life in arid conditions
(whether the temperature is hot or cold).  Even organisms which have plenty
of water still need small amounts of salt -- that's why game wardens are
putting out salt licks in parks for deer, buffalo, etc.

Now, it's quite true that if you use salt to preserve your food you certainly
don't need to add any for cooking.  No amount of soaking salt pork will get
all of the salt out. Again in modern diets, no one needs to add salt.  One
bag of chips or pretzels will give you a weeks worth of salt (or more).

Michelle Ziegler

Department of Pathology, St. Louis U.

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