Salt: Why It Is Essential and How to Store It Right

salt is absolutely essential for survival but did you know that a lot of salts do not have an indefinite shelf life stake in hi I'm Kyle 18 and I'm Jonathan we are the Provident Preppers did you know that salt is absolutely essential for your survival and needs to be an important part of your long-term food supply in this video today we're going to talk about what the best varieties of salt are to store we're also talked about how to store it for long term and how much you should store and the shelf life of these salts so that you know that yourself supplies are still viable stay with us salt is absolutely essential for survival this video is based on a post salt why it is essential on how to store it right we hope that you'll take a look at that and we'll be in the show notes so why should you store salt first of all it is absolutely essential to your survival one of the things we talked about naming this video was store salt or die and that may be a little bit dramatic okay it's a whole lot dramatic but the truth is it is a very important element for your very survival so make sure you get this on your storage list there are some significant health benefits for salt too little sodium can cause the body to actually retain fluid in order to conserve sodium it can cause dizziness confusion seizures and muscle twitching we all need a little bit of salt to be healthy another good reason to store the salt is that it enhances the flavor of your food food storage can be very bland and add a little bit of salt and it makes it amazing in moderation salt will enhance sweetness and suppress bitterness almost every food can benefit from a little pinch of salt food preservation salt can preserve food and creates an environment where bacteria fungi yeast and mold and other dangerous organisms cannot survive the one thing to know about food preservation is it takes a lot of salt to be able to accomplish this how much salt should you store there are a variety of recommendations out there Brigham Young University says 8 pounds we think 10 pounds is a really good number and it can be a great barter item too so if you end up with too much salt there will be a great opportunity for you to barter with it the nutrition facts on the side label indicate that a serving size of salt is 1/4 teaspoon and that that is 25% of your daily allowance so if you go by that number that means that you should store at least 1 teaspoon of salt per person per day which calculates out to be about 5 pounds for one year for each person that would be just a very bare bare minimum but like Jonathan said 10 pounds is a much more realistic estimate if you are baking everything from scratch and you're preserving your own food and doing all that that probably would happen if you are using your long term food storage how long will salt last pure salt sodium chloride will last basically forever when they start adding some anti-caking things in there or other side.i iodine or other things then you get a shelf life but salt by a self lasts forever so let's talk about salt stored wrong because there's always a right way to store something in a wrong way and this was the wrong way so we bought a case of iodized salt and put it in our food storage it was in its original case when I pulled it down to do this photo shoot that salt is 18 years old and there was no evidence of any water damage on the outside of the box when we opened the box some of the cardboard containers of salt actually had beads of moisture on the outside of them we cut them open and you can see the salt was just the one on the left the salt was saturated with moisture because salt is very hygroscopic hygroscopic and it means it attracts water so that's its job so what we need to do is protect that salt from being able to attract the water and I think the best way to do this is to store it in containers that are non water permeable there's great convenience in storing salt in its original container we like to store a variety of different salts so if you just take the original container of salt put in a plastic bucket make sure you label what exactly is in that bucket and seal that lid that salt should be protected in long-term storage pretty much forever another way to do it is in the center you'll see that little 2 gallon bucket that weighs 25 pounds salt is very heavy that little bucket contains a lot of salt however it's not as convenient to use the salt when it's in that form and then the glass jar on the right is pink Himalayan salt that's my favorite salt we put a plastic lid on it because salt will corrode metal over time we don't want a metal canning lid on that we want a plastic one so what's your the best varieties to store some of them store better than others so I would store the salts that will store the longest and choose the ones that are most suitable to what you like so right now let's go let's review the best salts for long-term storage ok let's do it table salt is a very common salt it has an anti-caking ingredient added which makes it so that that salt will stay free-flowing according to Morton it does have an indefinite shelf life iodized salt is a little bit different Iona salt this table salt that has potassium iodide added which reduces the shelf-life to only 5 years according to Morton you will want to store iodized salt in the short term food storage not your long term food storage because of that limited five year shelf life but it is really important because iodine is an essential nutrient you really need to have it in a non normal diet chances are you're going to get that if you're eating a good healthy diet however if we are just living off of our food storage you really should think about having an iodine supplement so pink Himalayan salt contains about 98% sodium chloride and the balance consists of trace minerals in in potassium magnesium copper calcium and iron and that's what makes it give that beautifully pink color you can get iodine from pink Himalayan salt it just doesn't have anywhere near as much as the supplemented salt does but it is a fantastic storage salt real salt is another option again this has other nutrients in it and a very tasty salt so it really comes down to what you like and what works best for your family and it does have an indefinite shelf life the reason why canning and pickling salt is so important to store is because if you look at the ingredients it is just plain salt nothing else so it will store indefinitely this is a really good salt to store but when you're canning your food and pickling if you use a salt that has anti-caking ingredients in it it will cloud the water this will not do that so and you could use this for a table salt also so this is a really good salt to store but it does come in the cardboard box so you're going to need to protect it from the air so that it doesn't attract the moisture that's in the air so kosher salt is another great option if you look at the anti-caking ingredient in the kosher salt in the Morton brand it is yellow press ate of soda you can purchase it without an ink anti-caking ingredient this one can be used in canning because it will not cloud the water powdered salt okay so you want to use powdered salt anytime you need it to dissolve very quickly it's perfect to have on popcorn and you can make your own it's not good to use table salt when you make it because when I put it in the coffee grinder it doesn't grind it as finely but if you use any of the salts like the pink Himalayan salt or the kosher salt or anything that has those larger crystals then it just grinds into this beautiful powder that tastes fabulous on popcorn and you can add different spices to it to make it a lot of fun this is natural sea salt you can purchase sea salt that has the anti kicking ingredients in it and some other things I prefer if I'm doing it from long-term storage that we get just straight pure sea salt so stock up on salt today this is something that you absolutely need to have it's very cheap right now so make sure that you provide enough for your family and a little bit to share because today like Jonathan was saying today it is so inexpensive but when disaster strikes salt is a commodity that you won't want to be without and yet maybe unavailable here are some resources we hope that you'll check out salt white is essential and how to store it right that is the post upon which this video was made also three months supply of food amazing peace of mind and long-term food storage creative solutions to build a critical asset these are in the show notes so you can look at the show notes and pick up on those we hope that you'll take a look salt is inexpensive and readily available do you have enough salt for your family today is a great day to stock up on salt and make sure the historic correctly and now for the questions of the day what experiences do you have with storing salt for you and your family and what are your favorite varieties comment below and thanks for being part of the solution [Music]

Channel: The Provident Prepper

Views: 176,199

Rating: 4.9280457 out of 5

Keywords: long term food storage, salt, shelf life of salt, table salt, iodized salt, shtf, prepper, emergency preparedness, short term food storage, food storage, pink himalayan salt, sea salt, salt for health, Real salt, survival food storage, disaster preparedness

Id: ykWeaJJjMfk

Length: 10min 21sec (621 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 05 2019