Blog # 25: Salt

When people think of the word “salary” one may think that specifically means how much a person makes annually from their career. How on earth did someone come up with the word “salary” for this definition?
According to my Human Anatomy and Physiology teacher, Dr. Kent Thomas, he said that the word salary came from the prefix sal, which comes from salt that we put on food to give it some extra flavor. He said hundreds or even thousands of years ago people didn’t have refrigerators to keep their food cold so they could preserve the killings much longer. They would have to kill the animal, such as, a pig and then eat what they could and then the rest would go to waste because they didn’t have anything to keep the dead carcass cold, fresh, and savable. They did this until they discovered salt! They would put their killings in and around salt to preserve the dead animal.
Now how did the word salary originate from salt that we eat? Well, hundreds of years ago when a person would work they would get paid in salt because back then salt was a much valuable item and everyone wanted it, like gold! They were much happier to receive salt as payment because it was so hard to come by. The term “a little bit of salt goes a long ways” is extremely true because they would only get paid in grams.
Back then salt wasn’t ingested like it is in the twentieth century. Today, Americans consume salt like it’s a necessary vitamin! The reason why Americans are so unhealthy and overweight is because the consumption of salt. Salt increases blood pressure and makes the body retain water. When people are retaining water, the heart has to work extra hard to pump blood through all that excess water molecules. The only reason why people use salt on food is for taste purposes. Salt has no nutritional value that has positive feedback, it actually only leaves negative feedback. Americans are adding salt to their food, when it already has salt in the ingredients! Meat, especially beef, is packed with added salt. Even fast food places, such as, salt adds an abundance amount of salt to the fattening French fries.
I try to stay away from salt just like thousands of other Americans are. Salt just taste good! But it leaves horrible negative effects on the human health. I wonder if there is a salt substitute that we could add to our foods to make it taste just as wonderful. I think Americans would be healthier if salt stayed as a preservative rather than making salt a food item.