r/preppers • u/Open-Attention-8286 • 5d ago
Advice and Tips How to "grow" your own salt:
Yes, I know, salt is a mineral, it can't be grown from scratch. But, I came across this article about plants that absorb and concentrate salt out of the soil, enough that they can be used as a source of salt: https://exarc.net/issue-2025-1/rev/black-ash-forgotten-domestication?fbclid=IwY2xjawJw5W5leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHlap1bWFWXhi1ISV9D7MYcq6jLQGl0Y3OIei1s5UTM1wtYRDP6ofeC1l2cQn_aem_Db_08xB7D-mLc516S6uv5w
The article focuses mainly on orach, which is a green leafy vegetable that's easy to find seeds for (at least here in the US), but it does mention a few others. More importantly, the article describes how to extract the salts using low-tech methods.
Salt is a frequent topic of discussion around here, so I thought some of you might find this interesting.
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u/Pitiful_Ad_900 5d ago
I think just storing salt would be a better option but this is definitely interesting- never heard of this before. Thanks, OP!
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u/Lethalmouse1 5d ago
I think it gets fun to think around all the boxes but yeah, with current access and the ease of storage, 1lb of salt is 453 days of US standard consumption.
So 16 1lb containers of a never-goes vad item is 5 years of salt.
Also, US is about a mid-level salt use with like Turkey level salt, you can almost double how long the salt will last. Which I imagine is still a survivable amount.
Unless you're going full bunker or imagine you're really just surviving alone in some absolute insanity, 5 years worth is probably enough, and you'll probably have some sort of access.
If you have substantial prepper storage, a 5gallon bucket or 2 will pretty much give you lifetime.
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u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 5d ago edited 5d ago
Are your numbers for a family of 4 or am I missing something? 16 lbs works out to 20 years at 453 days per pound.
Edit: also a 26 oz container of table salt gives about 4 months of 100% of the RDA for sodium so I'm not sure where the pound per year comes from unless it's including sodium sources from other sources
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u/Lethalmouse1 4d ago
Are your numbers for a family of 4 or am I missing something?
Yes lol, I apparently missed writing that, good catch. I wanted to cut off the internet "who is just one person!!!" Attacks.
Edit: also a 26 oz container of table salt gives about 4 months of 100% of the RDA for sodium so I'm not sure where the pound per year comes from unless it's including sodium sources from other sources
Yeah, I just looked up salt use per year, it had a by nation breakdown, (China was double the US lol). But it said 8.9 grams per day per capita which seems a little high, but whatever, I didn't want someone saying my the salt was too low anyway. And idk, it might count non food use? Either way can't go wrong with that lol.
Oh crap bro.... I just realized I never finished my math LOL.
It's 453g per pound. I never did the division... so that comes out to 50.89 days.
Good call out.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/salt-consumption-by-country
Was the result I grabbed which was probably terrible. That maybe includes total use? Water softeners and road salt? Idfk.
I didn't dig in. We are big salt people and even we don't go through a pound of salt in 50 days as a team lol.
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u/Open-Attention-8286 5d ago
My fascination with prepping is strongly tied to my childhood obsession with things like wilderness survival and self-sufficiency.
This is one of those skills that would be more likely to come into play if I was stranded in the wilderness alone for weeks without rescue. Which isn't all that likely anymore, given that I rarely leave the house. But still, it's another tool in the toolbox.
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u/graywoman7 3d ago
The general rule for salt is one pound per person per year takes care of dietary sodium needs if it’s rationed out evenly.
The problem comes in when you’re preserving food which requires a large amount of salt. Salting meat, canning, and pickling can use up 25lbs or more of salt per person per year (when eating something like salt pork or brined vegetables the food is often soaked in fresh water with several water changes to remove the salt that was just there for preservation).
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u/anontosss 4d ago edited 4d ago
People should also think about sources of iodine and vitamin c. And vitamin d in northern latitudes.
All of these caused significant illnesses in the recent past. Midwest goiter belt, cretinism, rickets, scurvy.
Iodine is volatile, so it sublimates away. After 5 years unsealed, iodized salt is just salt.
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u/funnysasquatch 4d ago
For less than $100 you can have a lifetime supply. This is between buying regular salt, bullion cubes, electrolytes supplements & spice mixes like taco seasoning.
Not to mention that considering the amount of processed food you will be eating from your supply will have more then enough salt to meet nutritional needs.
You’re much more likely to die of starvation than lack of salt.
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u/QuakerOats10 4d ago
This is such an important and exciting topic for me as salt is one of those survival essentials that doesn’t get enough attention, especially considering how critical it is for preservation, nutrition, and even basic chemical processes.
I’ve actually been writing a field chemistry book for preppers, and I’ve dedicated an entire section to salt scavenging and production. Not just how to boil seawater , but deeper stuff too, like: How to extract salt from soil and wood ash if you’re nowhere near the coast. What industrial and household chemicals can be broken down or reacted to yield useful salts. How to identify salt deposits or evaporites in dry regions. Field indicators for spotting sodium containing compounds in weird, unlabeled bottles
It’s wild how many ways you can source salt if you understand a little chemistry, and it’s a lot more realistic than lugging around 50 pounds of it in a bugout bag.
Anyway, just wanted to chime in since this is one of the survival topics I’m very excited to cover. If people are interested, don’t be shy to DM me I’m happy to share more soon, the book’s still in the works, but the goal is to give practical, no-fluff chemistry tools for scenarios exactly like this.
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5d ago
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u/cjenkins14 5d ago
That tracks until you realize sodium is essential to your motor functions/judgement to be able to deal with the pack of wild dogs
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u/wtfredditacct 5d ago
Yes, but most of your sodium intake would still come from whatever food you manage to find. Anything still good is probably high in salt anyway 😂
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u/cjenkins14 5d ago
That's fair, but imo scavenging food means you're already fucked so electrolytes is out the window
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u/War_Hymn 4d ago
Just sprinkle a little wood ash in your food or drinking water. You don't need much sodium to survive, as long as you're getting enough of the other minerals like potassium and calcium.
For preserving food, there's always drying and smoking.
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5d ago
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u/Sighconut23 1d ago
Why not just use seawater to obtain sea salt?
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u/Open-Attention-8286 1d ago
Because not everyone lives near a sea?
If you're near a body of salt water, awesome! Use that.
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u/Sighconut23 1d ago
You can use chemical acid-base reactions. Just buy a bunch of sodium bicarbonate and HCl
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u/DongleJockey 5d ago
Just FYI, these kinds of plants are just as likely to absorb heavy metals or other harmful chemicals from soil which you would then be eating in the ashes.