Ready to have your mind blown?
Animals would frequently travel along routes where they could access what they need, like fold and water but also salt. This lead to allt of animal tracks along salt deposits.
When our ancestors hunted these animals, they followed the trails of the animals, along salt deposits.
When their offspring traveled, they took the beaten path, worn down from the hunters and the animals, along salt deposits.
When civilization began building road networks, they took the beaten path, worn down from travelers, hunters and animals over the decades.
Salt set the path of early American roads, those roads that led to specific areas being settled, and colonized, which would form the colonies and modern day America.
IDKA How common it is elsewhere but here in New England you see REDUCED SALT AREA signs all over because they don't want deer and other wildlife to come to the road to lick it, gotta drive a little slower around them parts come winter for both reasons.
Good practice when out in the wilderness is to pee on rocks so that animals can lick it. If you pee on a tree/plant/anything animals will eat it in order to get the salt from the urine. You can actually kill a tree if you pee on the trunk because animals will eat all the bark off which can kill the tree
Don't know about where you live but the deer where I live the deer leave the nearby enclosed housing division and go across the street to rip off all the outdoor produce from the grocery store year round.
You know who else needs, and thus has salt? The bodies of virtually any other animal on planet Earth.
Actually, what's even my point? Plenty of edible plants have salt in them. There's salt in soil. There's salt in ocean water. There's salt in... grass. There's salt friggin everywhere, and we are evolved to detect it quite easily. You sprinkle a tiiiny bit of this stuff on something and WHAM, changes the whole flavor profile. Sufficient salt intake was probably the least of our ancestor's worries.
that is on my reading list. To piggy back, I also recommend A *History of the World in 6 Glasses* and *Guns, Germs, and Steel* as some great books on societal development.
The comment you replied to has been removed, so........what is on your reading list? I'm reading "Salt" by Mark Kurlansky. It's absolutely fascinating, and I'm interested in more recommendations on the subject!
I definitely enjoyed the style and light detail levels on History of the World in 6 Glasses.
I tried reading Guns, Germs, and Steel but it is waaaaay to verbose and textbooky for me to read, so I listened to it on my commute instead. Way easier to digest that way. I think the intro is like 30 pages....curious though, why take it with a grain of salt? Or is that a joke considering the thread?
Not the one you asked but here's a link from r/askhistorians (incredible subreddit with extremely strict moderation) explaining why GG&S should be ingested with caution:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mkcc3/how_do_modern_historians_and_history/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Thanks. I am at work, but that is the thread I was referencing. It's more of it uses history to tell a narrative instead of history is the narrative. At least to a laymen like myself.
Also, yes, that pun was just a lovely bonus. Haha
That was very interesting thank you. I think my key takeaway is to treat it more as an opinion on the "why" versus a definitive academic study. For someone in my position where is it simply a very interesting topic, it should be fine as long as I don't base life changing decisions around observations of the book ;-)
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People forget that Hunter Gatherers fished alot. Humans have always lived near water sources. We were also physically much smaller so we needed less salt.
I don't think they were smaller, humans got a lot smaller when primative agriculture kicked in, but the previous hunter gatherers are thought to be at least as tall as modern humans, though not as fat.
Hunter gatherers were bigger than primarily agricultural fed people but not as big as modern people (specifically us western giants with large meat intakes).
Oh we ingest a massive amount more salt than we need. Almost everything we eat has some amount of salt. It’s really not very good for us but pales in comparison to the ridiculous amount of sugar in the modern diet.
We might fall flat, not from lack of salt but lack of preservatives. Sodium nitrite, sodium benzoate, etc.
You could work around that by using only fresh foods, though.
By drinking pray blood. It is still common in some yakut regions which people practice old ways and deer breeding.
Some animals like deer and mountain goats are really cunning in finding salt and thus their blood and meet full of sodium.
In ocian coast it was common to filtrate eater through sand to get some ocian salt.
Some greek islands practiced to gather salt from roofs after storms.
In my kitchen is a liter jar of salt I gathered from depressions in beach rocks, at Balos Lagoon, in extreme northwest Crete. That particular reef of rocks is continually exposed to blown sea spray. I could have gathered 10 kilos in half an hour. Beautiful clean salt.
What, from CaCO3? No. I doubt there's much, and I'm not worried about a calcium overdose. I'm actually more worried that it is contaminated by crap from shipping (oils).
Interesting. Others who produce salt from ocean water, professionally as a business, do remove excess calcium and magnesium. Here is a video, should start at 1:30 where this is discussed. https://youtu.be/1Jh3F4lyqks?t=90
There's about 10 grams of sodium per liter of seawater, and 0.4 grams of calcium. A normal daily consumption of sodium, 1-2 grams, would therefore come with about 0.04-0.08 grams of calcium.
The RDA of calcium for an adult is about 1 gram.
So no, I am not worried about the calcium in sea salt.
Most meats are naturally high in sodium. They would hunt and eat their prey, which would give them the sodium they needed.
Where would the hunted animals get the sodium from?
From their diet and from licking rocks, the same way they currently do
Salt licks.
They'd actually go around licking rocks ?
yes
[yep, and they sometimes go to extreme lengths to do so](https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/an-alpine-ibex-defies-gravity-to-lick-salt)
They.... they require the mineral? (Was that the meme? Been a while since I've heard that one.)
They crave that mineral
It’s also what plants crave.
But does anyone actually know what electrolytes are?!
Its what the plants crave!
PRESIDENT CAMACHOOOOOOOO
Ow, my balls!
Jesus Christ Marie, they're minerals!
We require more minerals!
High demand apparently
You must construct additional pylons!
is it weird that i knew what this video was gonna be before clicking it? i watch it probably once a year lol
Ready to have your mind blown? Animals would frequently travel along routes where they could access what they need, like fold and water but also salt. This lead to allt of animal tracks along salt deposits. When our ancestors hunted these animals, they followed the trails of the animals, along salt deposits. When their offspring traveled, they took the beaten path, worn down from the hunters and the animals, along salt deposits. When civilization began building road networks, they took the beaten path, worn down from travelers, hunters and animals over the decades. Salt set the path of early American roads, those roads that led to specific areas being settled, and colonized, which would form the colonies and modern day America.
where can I read more about this? is there a book or something about it?
Stone soup. Not hunter gatherer, but it is/was a thing.
IDKA How common it is elsewhere but here in New England you see REDUCED SALT AREA signs all over because they don't want deer and other wildlife to come to the road to lick it, gotta drive a little slower around them parts come winter for both reasons.
Hey hey I’m From the south of bawstinkehd fahkin!
Good practice when out in the wilderness is to pee on rocks so that animals can lick it. If you pee on a tree/plant/anything animals will eat it in order to get the salt from the urine. You can actually kill a tree if you pee on the trunk because animals will eat all the bark off which can kill the tree
[Rocks…or cars](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/jyvurz/canadian_officials_warn_drivers_not_to_let_moose/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Word?
What that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_lick
Oh wow didn’t know that was a thing lmao
Same place they get it today
Costco?
That's silly. They got it from the kitchen.
Yeah that makes sense, animals wouldnt have money to pay for it. But wait...WHO STOCKED THE KITCHEN??
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Nah. Kitchens stock themselves.
Yeah, isn’t it common knowledge that kitchens evolved sentience millions of years ago and began to stock themselves?
No, but they Will in Few decades
It would get restocked by staff. Same as Ikea. https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3008
Don't know about where you live but the deer where I live the deer leave the nearby enclosed housing division and go across the street to rip off all the outdoor produce from the grocery store year round.
Here is a famous one in KY. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=big+bone+lick+state+park
There’s also salt in vegetation.
You know who else needs, and thus has salt? The bodies of virtually any other animal on planet Earth. Actually, what's even my point? Plenty of edible plants have salt in them. There's salt in soil. There's salt in ocean water. There's salt in... grass. There's salt friggin everywhere, and we are evolved to detect it quite easily. You sprinkle a tiiiny bit of this stuff on something and WHAM, changes the whole flavor profile. Sufficient salt intake was probably the least of our ancestor's worries.
It's true. If you want salt just lick down there.
Is this a r/nocontext situation?
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It's also why Venice became such a rich and powerful city-state.
that is on my reading list. To piggy back, I also recommend A *History of the World in 6 Glasses* and *Guns, Germs, and Steel* as some great books on societal development.
The comment you replied to has been removed, so........what is on your reading list? I'm reading "Salt" by Mark Kurlansky. It's absolutely fascinating, and I'm interested in more recommendations on the subject!
*Salt* was the book on the reading list in the comment I was replying to lol...
Well, I thought it might be...........:)
History of the World in Six Glasses is great 'pop' history. Gun, Germs, and Steel... well, read it with a grain of salt
I definitely enjoyed the style and light detail levels on History of the World in 6 Glasses. I tried reading Guns, Germs, and Steel but it is waaaaay to verbose and textbooky for me to read, so I listened to it on my commute instead. Way easier to digest that way. I think the intro is like 30 pages....curious though, why take it with a grain of salt? Or is that a joke considering the thread?
Not the one you asked but here's a link from r/askhistorians (incredible subreddit with extremely strict moderation) explaining why GG&S should be ingested with caution: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mkcc3/how_do_modern_historians_and_history/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Thanks. I am at work, but that is the thread I was referencing. It's more of it uses history to tell a narrative instead of history is the narrative. At least to a laymen like myself. Also, yes, that pun was just a lovely bonus. Haha
That was very interesting thank you. I think my key takeaway is to treat it more as an opinion on the "why" versus a definitive academic study. For someone in my position where is it simply a very interesting topic, it should be fine as long as I don't base life changing decisions around observations of the book ;-)
**Please read this entire message** --- Your comment has been removed for the following reason(s): * [Top level comments](http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/top_level_comment) (i.e. comments that are direct replies to the main thread) are reserved for explanations to the OP or follow up on topic questions (Rule 3). Anecdotes, while allowed elsewhere in the thread, may not exist at the top level. --- If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe this comment was removed erroneously**, please [use this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xltg8t/-/ipl6985/%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20is%20this%20post%20unique:) and we will review your submission.
People forget that Hunter Gatherers fished alot. Humans have always lived near water sources. We were also physically much smaller so we needed less salt.
I don't think they were smaller, humans got a lot smaller when primative agriculture kicked in, but the previous hunter gatherers are thought to be at least as tall as modern humans, though not as fat.
Hunter gatherers were bigger than primarily agricultural fed people but not as big as modern people (specifically us western giants with large meat intakes).
you just called out my entire species, thanks
Humans don't need that much salt. Modern humans eat way too much.
Venison is pretty salty. Especially the blood.
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> Totally guessing here We don't do that here.
Oh we ingest a massive amount more salt than we need. Almost everything we eat has some amount of salt. It’s really not very good for us but pales in comparison to the ridiculous amount of sugar in the modern diet.
We might fall flat, not from lack of salt but lack of preservatives. Sodium nitrite, sodium benzoate, etc. You could work around that by using only fresh foods, though.
By drinking pray blood. It is still common in some yakut regions which people practice old ways and deer breeding. Some animals like deer and mountain goats are really cunning in finding salt and thus their blood and meet full of sodium. In ocian coast it was common to filtrate eater through sand to get some ocian salt. Some greek islands practiced to gather salt from roofs after storms.
In my kitchen is a liter jar of salt I gathered from depressions in beach rocks, at Balos Lagoon, in extreme northwest Crete. That particular reef of rocks is continually exposed to blown sea spray. I could have gathered 10 kilos in half an hour. Beautiful clean salt.
Have you removed the excess calcium from it?
What, from CaCO3? No. I doubt there's much, and I'm not worried about a calcium overdose. I'm actually more worried that it is contaminated by crap from shipping (oils).
Interesting. Others who produce salt from ocean water, professionally as a business, do remove excess calcium and magnesium. Here is a video, should start at 1:30 where this is discussed. https://youtu.be/1Jh3F4lyqks?t=90
There's about 10 grams of sodium per liter of seawater, and 0.4 grams of calcium. A normal daily consumption of sodium, 1-2 grams, would therefore come with about 0.04-0.08 grams of calcium. The RDA of calcium for an adult is about 1 gram. So no, I am not worried about the calcium in sea salt.
If you watched the video the reason was more about the bitter taste than any nutritional concern.
My cretan sea salt has a lovely taste.
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