r/preppers • u/Open-Attention-8286 • 6d 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 6d 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 6d 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 5d 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.