Salt - The Ultimate Tradable Resource?

Hello everyone. I'm not sure a SitX will ever happen but i decided to be careful,i buy extra food to last over a month and just rotate new stuff with old. That way i don't waste money, however if anything ever happened i wonder what the ultimate trading resource would be? People mention spices, oils, soaps and other things. However i think salt is the ultimate tradable resource and here is why.

Firstly salt never goes bad. Take a load of salt, store it in large food grade plastic containers and it really will last your entire life. I use glass for anything i store not plastic and it's just as good. Spices and herbs, whilst good will eventually break down even if they're stored in glass jars. They become weaker and weaker as time goes by. Plant oils break down in at most a few years, soap only really has one use etc.

Salt on the other hand has a multitude of uses! From preserving food, to treating mouth ulcers, flavouring dishes and cleaning out wounds, salt is so precious wars have been fought over it. I know there were also the spice wars but again, spices don't last as long as salt

On top of all that think of how cheap salt is! You can buy a sack of the damn stuff for minimal cost. So yeah salt is i think the ultimate tradable resource.

As long as you don't live near the coast.. I guess people won't be needing it there ;]

reply to post by scraze


Pretty much yeah, but the point is that even in the past wars were fought over salt because evaporating sea water was to costly. Think about a situation where you have to hunt for food each day, would you really have tons of time to collect the wood required to boil enough sea water to obtain a sack of salt you can buy now in the supermarket for a tiny cost?

salt used to be the single largest trading commodity. for many years it was the the most highly coveted substance.

you should pick up a book called: "salt" by mark kurlanski. one of the best books i have read in years.

it's many uses would fare you well in survival conditions. mainly for food preservation.
once you learn the technique, your golden.

Yep

I keep a 50 pound bag of the stuff as part of my home kit. Its an essential element and everybody should have some.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


Indeed, I wouldn't go for wood and start a fire and find a metal container to boil the seawater in, just enough to collect a 'pinkful' of salt..
All you need is a flat surface for the seawater, large enough to spread a fair amount of seawater so its about half an inch high. With a little bit of sunshine, it will evaporate by itself. The sun just helps it speed up though, water evaporates continually. The main reason to boil seawater to divide water and salt, is to get the water - salt is way easier to extract (although boiling would be faster, but who needs salt in a hurry).

But all this only matters if you really live near the coast

[edit on 16-5-2009 by scraze]

Originally posted by FredT
Yep

I keep a 50 pound bag of the stuff as part of my home kit. Its an essential element and everybody should have some.

I must admit i have the same, although mine is seperated into glass jars. In the end i don't see why people call those of us who store a little nut jobs. I use the salt, little by little and it'll take a very long time i grant you but i haven't lost money on it. If anything ever did go bad i have a brilliantly tradeable resource and more importantly i have a way of preserving meat and fish that others don't have. Not to mention brine solutions for vegetables.

Of course i can always trade tons of the stuff very easily for things i need. Salt is so precious it would be like gold dust.

[edit on 16-5-2009 by ImaginaryReality1984]

When the SHTF, good luck obtaining IODIDE.
Iodizes salt contains iodide, a necessary micro nutrient.
Iodine as it's more naturally called.
Not to mention its a source of electrolytes. A tiny pinch of a pinch is all you need. Add it to some pine needle tea. mmmmmmmmmm

One aspect to consider as well. Right now based on what we consume we need very little extra salt. Packaged and processed foods contains huge amounts. I looked at one of the dried noodle bowls my wife likes the other day and was staggered to see that it had 2300+ mg of salt in it.

Take all that away in Sit X and the need for salt becomes apparent.

Well, my mother has officially covered us in the salt area. A few weeks ago she bought 5 pounds of it for $3. While its not the 50 pounds mentioned earlier, its still A LOT that we will probably never use.

Evaporating sea water wouldn't be a possibility where I live, so I guess all of the excess is an extra bonus.

Salt has many other uses such as
softening water, melting icy paths, putting in baths for healing the skin, clearing up chemical spills.

There are different grades of salt I have pdv which is cooking salt and coarse rock salt.

I have 100Kg of each, the best things are that it doesn't take up to much space and only costs about £6 / 25Kg in the UK, there is no VAT (Sales tax) to pay either.

The other useful item is Sodium Bicarbonate get a few sacks of this too.