9781422280492

Salt

or gotten a mouthful of it during your last swim in the ocean. It’s one of the five main taste qualities your tongue can perceive, along with sweet, sour, bitter, and umami, and it has been claimed to have some 14,000 uses. We’re talking, of course, about salt. This humble white substance seems to be everywhere (and, with all the processed foods in our modern diets, it actually kind of is), so we often consume it without giving it much thought. We forget that for thousands of years, it was a highly prized source of income and trade, as well as the many ways it is essential to our health. No matter how we encounter it, salt is a building block of life that goes well beyond just enhancing our taste buds. T he B asic C hemistry of S alt In chemistry, a salt is a special kind of compound formed by the reaction between an acid and a base. The negative charge in the acid and the positive charge in the base come together to form an ionic bond that creates the salt. Salts can be many colors,

Potassium dichromate is a salt that’s used in cement as well as in photography and screen printing.

10