Cultivating Salt

[JAB]

This has made me think of a question...

I wonder if plain, untreated 'salt blocks' made for livestock, etc. - the ones that don't have additional minerals and so on added - would be okay for human consumption and, therefore, a good way to store salt long-term. Assuming that 'pure salt' blocks are still available, my guess is that they would be pretty inexpensive. Because of being formed into 'blocks', they would be more compact and - as long as they were kept dry - would seem to be easier to store than big bags of table salt, etc.

Of course, it is possible to buy blocks of Himalayan salt. It is 'gourmet' stuff that might be a bit expensive, though:

http://www.atthemead...ndex&cPath=1_27

Edited March 1, 2012 by JAB

[Jamie Jackson]

JAB;

While I haven't done so myself, I've read several folks over at Frugal's Forum say they keep the blocks for their personal use.

They've written they just grind it when needed.

As a child, we kept 4 or 5 in our barn year round and rotated them out to the livestock (cattle)...and that's deep down in MS. As I recall, they held up without any issues.

[I_Like_Pie]

Good grief you folks over think things. Go to tractor supply and get a 50# block of it for $20 if it is that much of a worry. It will last several thousands of years if you keep it dry and will supply all the salt you will ever need for a decade if SHTF.

If it gets that bad then salt will be the least of your problems.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

For simple curiosity rather than practical purpose-- Wonder if rock salt as was used in old hand-crank ice cream machines would be "food grade" in a desperate enough situation, or whether the standards of other trace elements in the rock salt would be too loose to eat it much?

I may be remembering wrong-- Weren't the big bags of rock salt used both for ice cream machines and also for homeowners salting walkways and driveways in icy weather? Or were there two different kinds of the stuff sold in bags for the two different purposes?

Neither application would normally get hardly any of it in food? So it probably wouldn't matter if it happened to contain trace amounts of heavy metals or whatever? Never thought about that as a kid. Every time I'd help crank ice cream would suck on one or two chunks of rock salt. Tasted good. Can't recall any "do not eat" signs on the bags. Think there is a big bag of rock salt down in the basement somewhere. If I happen to run across it, will see if there is any info on the bag that might be more informative than "xx pound rock salt".

Edited March 1, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Makiaveli]

Good grief you folks over think things. Go to tractor supply and get a 50# block of it for $20 if it is that much of a worry. It will last several thousands of years if you keep it dry and will supply all the salt you will ever need for a decade if SHTF.

If it gets that bad then salt will be the least of your problems.

Thanks! Will do

[Jonsaiga]

Good topic and another +1 for salt blocks from the feed store. 50lbs blocks usually only cost $5-7 dollars. Wrap them in plastic wrap to limit wicking moisture from humidity in the air or collecting dust and such. A regular handsaw makes it quick and easy to cut them into thin blocks for more convenient packages for later use or barter. Salt is also great for saving animal hides if you are not wanting to tan them immediately.

[Guest lostpass]

They keep freaking truckloads of it near the highways. Well, several truckloads. Cause it how they salt the roads before a storm. How much salt is on hand? Enough to spread that stuff everywhere.

This is not a real issue, sugar could be salt is not. When you are planning for the end of things planning for salt should be right up there with oxygen. You'll need it but you won't have any trouble getting it.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Are salt blocks iodized as well? Just curious. Presumably livestock need iodine just like humans, but maybe they get it as a feed additive?

Am still curious whether "industrial salt" or hardware store "rock salt" is pure enough to be food-grade? If most salt comes from the same salt mines, maybe most of it has equivalent purity to food grade salt? Just curious.

Lostpass, most MRE's and commercial "survival food" nutrition labels I've looked at, has "too much" salt for an old man, unless somebody is active enough to sweat it out. On the other hand, if somebody happened to have a few months of brown rice or lentils on hand-- Did ya ever try to choke down unsalted brown rice or lentils? Beats starving, but not by much!

[Timestepper]

Don't know anything about cultivating salt, but here are a few ways to determine dairy product spoilage:

Milk is spoiled when it starts to look like yogurt.

Yogurt is spoiled when it starts to look like cottage cheese.

Cottage cheese is spoiled when it starts to look like regular cheese.

Regular cheese is nothing but spoiled milk anyway and can't get any more spoiled than it is already.

Cheddar cheese is spoiled when you think it is blue cheese but you realize you've never purchased that kind.

(Wanted to share this somewhere, but couldn't justify starting a new thread. )

[Guest FiddleDog]

Are salt blocks iodized as well? Just curious. Presumably livestock need iodine just like humans, but maybe they get it as a feed additive?

Am still curious whether "industrial salt" or hardware store "rock salt" is pure enough to be food-grade? If most salt comes from the same salt mines, maybe most of it has equivalent purity to food grade salt? Just curious.

Lostpass, most MRE's and commercial "survival food" nutrition labels I've looked at, has "too much" salt for an old man, unless somebody is active enough to sweat it out. On the other hand, if somebody happened to have a few months of brown rice or lentils on hand-- Did ya ever try to choke down unsalted brown rice or lentils? Beats starving, but not by much!

I'd be curious on this, too. Iodized Salt played a major role in the reduction/prevention of gout...

[MacGyver]

Seeing as they use approximately 60mL of potassium iodate to iodise a ton of salt, you'd get more than enough iodine from either water purification tablets or a cheap bottle of iodine crystals used to purify water like PolarPure.

Note that the iodine content in salt dissipates via a couple of different processes over time.

[Jamie Jackson]

I'd be curious on this, too. Iodized Salt played a major role in the reduction/prevention of gout...

I'm not picking nits, my friend...but iodine reduces the possibility of goiter. Gout is a type of arthritis from too much circulating uric acid in the blood...I know, because I have periodic flareups of gout.

I apologize for the drift.

[Jonnin]

I only skimmed, but if no one said it...

you can make salt from mixing an acid and a base. Here, you want table salt so a mixture of HCL and NAOH gives you pure salt water, which can be evaporated. There are a number of ways to make or obtain these two things. However, these compounds are dangerous so extreme care would need to be taken to ensure the resulting food product were not toxic in some way, either from contaminated ingredients or incorrect concentrations (you really want a 1 to 1 mixture here).

Sugar is not an issue. First, we do not *need* sugar, unless diabetic. Second, grains, fruits, and many other things provide natural sugars that can either be refined to some extent (you won't be making pure white sugar at home, but that stuff is bad for you anyway) or just eaten as-is to provide what little sugar a body needs.

Edited March 2, 2012 by Jonnin

[Guest FiddleDog]

I'm not picking nits, my friend...but iodine reduces the possibility of goiter. Gout is a type of arthritis from too much circulating uric acid in the blood...I know, because I have periodic flareups of gout.

I apologize for the drift.

Ah good catch. I had an FTF in my synapses, there.

[Jamie Jackson]

Ah good catch. I had an FTF in my synapses, there.

Thank you Kind Sir.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks for interesting ideas from all concerned.

It is a good point that most likely anyone who has put back a stock of iodine water purification pills, or povidone iodine, most likely has enough iodine to avoid iodine deficiency for years. It is kinda surprising (from what I read) that people can apparently drink iodine sterilized water for weeks or months with "usually" minimal ill effect. One would think people would OD on it after awhile. Though of course consuming sufficient amount of potent iodine preparations will kill you dead as a doorknob.

Here is a good article found, on potential health effects of long-term consumption of iodine-sterilized water-- Doesn't sound as bad as dying of thirst or cholera anyway--

http://ehp03.niehs.n...89/ehp.00108679

I have a few bottles of Tetraglycine hydroperiodide water sterilization pills and a few bottles of chlorine/oxygen based pills. Maybe careful use of 10% povidone iodine would be a lot cheaper if one needed to drink risky water for awhile-- This page gives recommended doses for various forms of iodine.

http://www.high-alti....com/water.html

Iodine Preparations

Preparation -------------------------------------- Amount/Liter

Iodine Topical Solution 2% ------------------- 8 drops

Iodine Tincture 2% ------------------------------ 8 drops

Lugol's Solution 5% ----------------------------- 4 drops

Povidone-Iodine (Betadine®) 10% ------------ 4 drops

Tetraglycine hydroperiodide 8 mg ------------- 1 tablet

(Globaline®, Potable Aqua®, EDWGT®)

Disinfecting Contact Times

WATER CLARITY WATER TEMPERATURE --- 5 °C ------ 15 °C

Clear ----------------------------------------------------------- 30 min --- 15 min

Cloudy --------------------------------------------------------- 60 min --- 30 min

I can't google a decent reference right now, but awhile ago when googling whether Povidone-Iodine or Tetraglycine hydroperiodide would be useful "in a pinch" to protect the thyroid against radioactive iodine-- I recall reading numerous threads making claim that neither are likely to be effective, compared to the potassium iodide tablets made for that purpose. The potassium iodide tabs are 130 mg with 100 mg of iodide. Maybe drinking 10 liters of water per day treated with Hydrooperiodide pills or Povidone Iodine would do about the same as potassium iodide (or possibly a smaller amount of water containing a higher dose). Can't find references today. I do recall reading references in the past saying that this won't work. Maybe because it would be more toxic or possibly just crazy-inconvenient. Or maybe it really would be "better than nothing" if Sequoia Nuclear Reactor melts down and the authorities don't hand out potassium iodide pills.

----

On making salt from HCl and NaOH -- Haven't priced hardware store muriatic acid and lye lately, but am guessing maybe it would be easier to store salt than to store those chemicals. Or more "chemically pure" equivalents to the hardware store stuff. Dunno if I'd trust hardware store chemicals to be pure enough to rely on the resultant salt being food-quality. Maybe hardware store chemicals are decently pure, dunno.

Would also be concerned that if the authorities bust down a prepper's door because of wrong address or bad tip-- If they find your shelves stocked not only with multiple bottles of Povidone Iodine, but also large amounts of muriatic acid and lye, then the prepper would probably go to jail for life as a meth cooker. Especially if he also has a box or two of pseudofed in his medical supplies.

[Jonnin]

That was not the point, it would be idiotic to store the chem to make salt of course. The point was a couple of easily made/found things can be used. You can make or find both hcl and naoh from a variety of sources in a pinch. Purification? Thats another story... might be tough, I am not sure what the process would be or how you would know when it is pure enough.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

That was not the point, it would be idiotic to store the chem to make salt of course. The point was a couple of easily made/found things can be used. You can make or find both hcl and naoh from a variety of sources in a pinch. Purification? Thats another story... might be tough, I am not sure what the process would be or how you would know when it is pure enough.

Hi Jonnin. Lacking sophisticated lab gear, pragmatic experimentation?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2L_7DeFwVM

====

A post-civil-war tale Mom would tell, maybe handed down from from old relatives, or maybe something she read-- Maybe true. Dunno. She said livestock and food was seized by union soldiers and nobody had any money. The ancestors were so hard up that they dug up the dirt floor of the smokehouse and boiled the dirt, evaporated off the water, to recover salt accumulated from many prior years meat-drippings.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[subsonic]

They keep freaking truckloads of it near the highways. Well, several truckloads. Cause it how they salt the roads before a storm. How much salt is on hand? Enough to spread that stuff everywhere.

There are a bunch of different forms of salt........ I wouldn't want to be your kidneys.

[alwaysonjohn]

Here is a link for salt in bulk that I found recently and started using for cooking/dinner table. It should be able to last since its already pretty old... I buy it by the 5lb bags.

http://www.amazon.co...31275795&sr=8-5

Edited March 9, 2012 by alwaysonjohn

[Oh Shoot]

Here is a link for salt in bulk that I found recently and started using for cooking/dinner table. It should be able to last since its already pretty old... I buy it by the 5lb bags.

http://www.amazon.co...31275795&sr=8-5

Wow, Himalayan salt that claims to LOWER blood pressure. That's some kind of miracle Yeti stuff for sure!

- OS

[DannyP]

Very good points guys, would have never thought of stocking salf for so many purposes

Danny

[jtmaze]

Break into a chemistry lab and steal Hydrochloric acid (Muriatic acid) and Sodium Hydroxide. Mix them together and you get NaCl and water. I wouldn't eat the product though.

Just be careful when cooking it down. It can give off clorine gas if not mixed properly. Getting the hcl acid will be the toughest. You can get baking soda anywhere. I might even stock up on baking soda cause it is very handy to have around.

[enfield]

Sodium Hydroxide is not baking soda - it's lye. You really don't want to mix HCl and NaOH. I'm not a chemist, but I know that.

You don't just get salt and water. You also get energy (heat). You get boiling salt water, steam, splashed acid and lye, chlorine gas. It's enough to seriously mess up your day.

Edited March 19, 2012 by enfield

[Guest ochretoe]

I think I can answer the original question. Salt is found naturally in almost every state. Nashville was founded because there was a salt lick there. Take salt lick earth, soak it in water, strain the water into a large metal pot, heat to evaporate the water and what left is salt. You may have to soak it and dry it several times to get it clean. Follow deer and other wildlife to areas where salt licks occur naturally.