Salt has been used through the ages for the preservation of food. Many people will be familiar with products such as bacon, ham and pickled vegetables. All of these products use salt as the preservative. So why does it work? And how can salt be used as a preservative in natural products?
Antibacterial Properties
Salt is considered to be an antibacterial. That is why it is good at preserving products as well as food stuffs. Why is this so? Well, anything that is called antibacterial is called so because it inhibits the growth of bacteria. These bacteria feed off your product and cause it to spoil. Bacteria need a wet environment to grow in. Salt prevents the watery environment the bacteria need to thrive. This is because salt is very good at dehydrating and absorbing the water from anything it comes into contact with. Upon contact with a bacterial presence, salt will start to absorb water from through the cell walls and effectively kill the living organism.
Mould Prevention
Salt can also be used when you are preserving a product via fermentation. The salt will inhibit the growth of moulds and yeasts. While some moulds and yeast are certainly needed during the fermentation process, by using small amounts of salt, it is possible to regulate and stabilise this process.
It is only possible to do this though if you are using salt that does not contain ‘free-flowing’ agents or iodine. Both of these chemicals will prevent the salt from doing its job correctly. Therefore, when you are shopping for a salt to use as a preservative, it is important to use a salt that is listed as being free of both chemicals. By purchasing ‘pickling salt’ or ‘kosher salt’, you can be free in the knowledge that neither will contain these chemicals as both of these products are free from any additives. Once again, salt is effective in the fermentation process because of its dehydrating effects. This time though, it is used not to dry the product, but to help let any juices fun free, which are needed in fermentation.
By now it is easier to see why salt has been involved in so much superstition throughout history. It has been used by many vastly different religious groups to protect both individuals and buildings from evil. They did not have the scientific evidence to explain why salt kept food edible for miraculous amounts of time, but they associated the salt with strong magic. That is why it is used to protect and heal in sympathetic magic.
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Rachel Tsoumbakos - I am a stay at home mother of two who has had the opportunity while at home to develop my passions for gardening and writing. I wish for a ...
