How to obtain salt in the wild?

[Toadflax]

If you are a hunter gatherer near the coast, then you can always evaporate sea water to get salt, but if we think Middle Earth (sorry - Middle England!), a typical British woodland /countryside far from the coast (and if you don't have any salt mines /deposits nearby), how would you obtain salt from the wild - and indeed, do you need to?

I know very little about human physiology, but I think that I'm right in saying that if you don't get enough salt in your diet, you are going to start to malfunction. Elephants go and lick salt from rocks, but how do they know they need to do so? How would I know instinctively if I was suffering from salt deficiency?

I seem to remember reading that the leaves of at least one wild plant can be burned to produce a salt substitute, but If you don't actually have access to salt crystals does, for example, a varied wild diet provide sufficient salt or is the non-coastal hunter gatherer going to be salt-deficient?


Geoff

 

[Wayland]

Most animal blood has salt in it.

I believe many carnivores need no supplemental salt at all in their diets.

 

[Bernie Garland]

Most animal blood has salt in it.

I believe many carnivores need no supplemental salt at all in their diets.

i agree, i don't think we need salt, just have it to improve the flavour

 

[Jodie]

Are we excluding meat in this cos I think that's where I'd expect to find salt (not
added salt, it's already there). Or blood.

I can only assume that sufficient salt has been available in the past otherwise
people wouldn't have been able to breathe or move or do much else as it's essential
for nerve conduction and muscle activity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt

Hyponatraemia is the term for low blood sodium and hypokalaemia for low potassium
- however I don't know, off the top of my head, if they result from poor levels of salt
in the diet as I think they are usually medical emergencies and / or arise from hormone
problems.
(can also spell them US English with e- rather than ae-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatraemia etc.

I've not given this a detailed look but it seemed OK:
http://www.medicinenet.com/electrolytes/article.htm

Lots of plants have salt in their cells too - I thought it was fairly ubiquitous to be honest,
but admittedly I'd not given it a great deal of thought before! Most animal or plant cells
would have fairly similar channels / ports that govern the entrance and exit of ions for
control of cell volume. I think. Don't quote me on it

 

[benp1]

do some exercise and wipe it off your forehead and pits

 

[Toddy]

I do take Wayland's point, but most humans are omniverous and more and more of us eat mostly lean white meat or no meat at all.

Plant sources in the UK are fairly easy to obtain; nettles, coltsfoot, samphire, watercress, good king henry.....if you eat enough greenstuffs then your diet will have plenty. What makes them better for you too is that it's a mix of salts, including potassium and boron.
Boiled down yeasty liquid yields a salty-ish paste too, like vegemite.

Salt is one of the original trade goods. Even in the middle of the Amazon jungle people labour to produce it.
Most of our plant ashes salts are more like stock than salt. Nettles make a good stock 'salt' that's not from the ashes though, coltsfoot ashes are saltier tasting and the seaweeds are, unsurprisingly, really good.
There's a theory that the dried fish that was such a common feature of the diet of our recent ancestors meant that they didn't have problems with goitre and the like either.

There's nowhere in the UK where it's impossible to trade seasalt relatively easily, it's that whole, "we're really islanders" thing.

Anyone know any other good plant sources ?

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Ogri the trog]

The two parts of my answer have been mentioned already,
Firstly I remember the scene in the "Walkabout" film featuring a young Jane Seymour, where the Aboriginal boy licks the sweat off his hands from his pits - not very "western civilised" but ideal to preserve what you already have.
The second would be a snippet I recall from the recent TV show where a group of people lived on a gorilla island at a zoo. The consultant nutritionalist mentioned the daily requirement for salt in an average human is equivalent to one brine soaked olive!
The primary reason we all crave more salt than this, is that bland food taste a little better.

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[john scrivy]

so as not to confuse the actress was known as Jenny Agatter in that film

 

[Toadflax]

Some interesting comments so far.

After a bit more research myself, it does seem (contrary to my original assumptions) that sufficient electrolyte intake can be obtained from a balanced diet (echoes of my Mum here telling me that the healthiest diet is a varied one). Although you can't assume Wikipedia entries are fact, this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet) discusses a simulation of palaeolithic diet regime in the modern world and mentions that, although the sodium intake is lower than a typical modern diet, there is an increase in potassium intake which perhaps produces a more suitable sodium /potassium balance.

So it would seem from the small amount of evidence on this thread so far that, apart from the obvious flavour and preservative benefits of having access to crystalline salt, it may not need to form any part of a balanced diet.



Geoff

PS: You can really match Jodie's informative, linked postings to her job title!

 

[Burnt Ash]

so as not to confuse the actress was known as Jenny Agatter in that film

Jenny Agutter. Still one of my favourite actresses.

Burnt Ash

 

[match]

Anyone know any other good plant sources ?

One I tend to always like is Orach - a member of the Atriplex family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atriplex). Its also known as saltbush, and tends to grow in dry or seashore environments. It 'filters out' excess salt from the water it takes up through its roots, and expels this through pores on the leaves. When seen on beaches, it often has salt crystals on the leaves surface.

Cooked and eaten like spinach, and makes a very tasty soup - doesn't need any stock either!

 

[andy_e]

Jenny Agutter. Still one of my favourite actresses.

Burnt Ash

Hehe - Jenny Agutter - I'll be having warm thoughts all day now.

Am sure I've seen books mentioning Borage as a good source of salts, have grown my own and found it wild but only ever eaten it not tried to make salt from it. It's supposed to be chock full of calcium and potassium so that might explain the salt reference ...

http://www.herb.co.za/herbal/borage_more.htm

 

[Jodie]

Calcium and potassium are also essential for nerve and muscle activity and general
cellular communication and whatnot, among other things. It's all good stuff - in the
appropriate amounts of course.

I used to live up the road from Jenny Agutter.

 

[rik_uk3]

Some people have to be on a 'salt free' diet, but still get enough from eating a good balance of meals.

PS
No salt at all = You die

PPS
No salt on chips = the chips taste crap

 

[John Fenna]

No salt on your porridge - porridge tastes crap....
Two threads linked by one post!

 

[Ketchup]

"Salt hunger" hurts, as I remember from the tropics.

I learned in food technology that every human needs 6 grams (a heaped tablespoon) of NaCl a day. More in warmer climates. In a world without processed foods, that amount is only available from eating meat (unless you live by the sea shore or salt source, of course). Mountain people through history all depended on import of salt, especially the herdsmen, as their flock needed it even more than themselves. You could recognize mountain folks by their goiter.

On top of that, in the olden days salt was heavily taxed (that was the true reason for the French Revolution). For kings and lords, that was a dead easy form of income. Nobody could live without it, yet production and distribution was a royal privilege. For centuries, the rural poor tried desperately to find (illegal) alternatives , but all failed.

The closest they came was wrapping cheeses, sausages etc. in ash from the fire, but that contained too much K (potassium), making the food bitter and turning into lye in water.

 

[John Fenna]

On a serious note - a balance of salts is essential, not just a relyance on sodium.
In The Great Drought Of 1976 I dehydrated almost to the point of death in the Pennines, being rescued by chance, and took "salt tablets" - pure sodium salt - and then had another episode of near dehydration in 1977 in the Clwydian Hills (note to self - try to learn from your mistakes a bit quicker).
I ended up wrecking my sodium /potassium balance and it was kind of spacy for a while nd I had to spend a long time on medication to restore my balance (some say I am still imbalanced) and I still have to be very careful in hot weather, taking lots of rehydrate type salts, while (due to high blood pressure) keping my salt intake reasonable! Being a sweaty person by nature does not help!
My herbalist reckons that my dehyration episodes may also have contributed to my propensity to developing kidney stones (and renal colic is NO fun!)
The body needs a broad spectrum of salts and before the days of ultra refining foods, including salt, this was probibly achieved through a balanced diet, suplimented by a little traded sea salt.
A modern super refined diet with denatured ingredients may not give the balance we need (guessing here) and I replace pure sodium salt in cooking/seasoning with a low sodium alternative and use lots of Dioralyte when going hot weather trekking!

 

[Moff8]

Is sea salt better than the denatured salt? Maybe having more impurities.

If you start to come off a 'normal' salty diet and move to a healthier one would you get any withdrawl symptoms?

I have found that at the end of a long hike I could have a packet of ready salted crisps and most of the time I couldn't taste the salt at all - I guessed because my body needed it. I have always thought that if I can taste the salt then I don't need it. Not exactly a scientific experiment just what I find works with me.

 

[andy_e]

I think Sea Salt is generally better for you because it is not pure NaCl, but a mixture of Sodium & Potassium Chlorides amongst others...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_salt

Never heard of denatured salt - what's in that?

This one has an interesting link to Goiter in the US...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodised_salt

 

[fishy1]

It's sodium I think that you need, not salt? Sodium is a component of salt.
You could try eating wood ash, that should have sodium carbonate in it.