Discover Salt within the Wild (Pure Salt Sources)

People want salt or sodium chloride not as a result of it makes meals style higher however as a result of your physique wants it to manage fluids, maintain the muscle mass and nerves functioning appropriately, and management blood strain. 

With out salt, you’ll find yourself convulsing in a nook, which isn’t any survivalist’s imaginative and prescient of the long run. Though you may simply carry sufficient salt with you to bug out for a couple of days, if these few days turn out to be months or years, you want to have the ability to discover salt within the wild. 

In the event you discover sufficient salt, it’s also possible to use it to preserve meat in the wild.

6 Pure Salt Sources Each Survivalist Ought to Know 

#1 Seawater

The obvious place to supply salt is within the ocean. Every liter of seawater comprises round 35g of salt. Assuming you devour salt at 2,300mg per day, as beneficial by the CDC, that’s sufficient to final you around15 days.

Extracting salt from seawater is easy sufficient, supplied you could have a container to place it in and a hearth to boil it over. You’ll be able to even do it with out both of those if you know the way to make a photo voltaic nonetheless, which we explored in our article on boiling seawater to make it drinkable.  

Convey the seawater to a boil, and the water will evaporate off, leaving the salt behind. 

Alternatively, you may extract the salt by the method of distillation. 

You are able to do this by boiling the water in a lined pot however leaving the lid barely to at least one aspect. Because it evaporates, the water will acquire on the lid, the place it would as soon as once more condense, however this time as pure or distilled water. The salt can be left within the authentic container, prepared to be used. 

You need to use this similar course of to reap salt from an inland salt lake.

#2 Sand

Even while you’re miles away from the ocean, if the bottom round you is sandy, it could include harvestable salt deposits. Native folks usually extracted salt from the soil by washing it in recent water. 

They historically used custom-made baskets for the extraction course of, which concerned throwing water over the hampers of sand and salt. The sand and soil would acquire within the backside of the basket, whereas the salt would wash by, dissolved within the water. 

It will then be handled like seawater, utilizing evaporation or distillation to separate the salt from the water.

This system was reportedly practiced across the seasonal salt lake of Laguna de Sayula in Mexico. Nonetheless, there’s no purpose you couldn’t use it to outlive, particularly if you end up in Utah, Florida, or one of many different saltier states.

#3 Salt Springs

Dotted across the US are quite a few brine and salt springs, a lot of which have been utilized by our ancestors. There’s proof of salt being harvested from these sources all through Jap North America. 

Salt was “most commonly produced at brine springs,” utilizing salt pans set into depressions within the floor. The brine from the spring was poured into these pans, to which heated stones have been additionally added. Because the water heats and evaporates, it leaves a layer of crystallized salt on the backside of the pan. 

#4 Plant Leaves 

Sodium happens naturally within the soil, and crops soak up it alongside different minerals. Sure crops are extra sodium-rich than others, bioaccumulating excessive salt ranges of their tissues. 

Coltsfoot has a surprisingly excessive sodium chloride content material and grows prolifically throughout the USA, providing you with essentially the most dependable, if not typical, supply of salt. 

To extract the salt from coltsfoot, you first want to reap the leaves and allow them to dry for a couple of hours. As soon as the leaves are dry and crispy sufficient to burn, roll them right into a tube as if you have been rolling a cigarette. Mild the top of your rolled-up leaves and place them on a flat floor, like a rock.

The dried leaves ought to burn pretty steadily, abandoning a small pile of black ash. Though this isn’t pure salt, it does include a excessive proportion of salt. It could not look notably appetizing, however it tastes very delicate however is salty sufficient to season meals and increase your sodium consumption. 

Of all of the crops, saltbush or goosefoot is the saltiest. This plant grows in areas of excessive salinity and absorbs substantial portions of the mineral into its tissues. 

Formally often called chenopodium, goosefoot grows in each state besides Hawaii. Along with being a superb supply of pure salt, it additionally has medicinal qualities, together with the power to forestall inner parasites. 

To get salt from saltbush, you may both eat the leaves uncooked, which have a herby taste, or burn them and use the ashes.  

#5 Plant Roots 

Some crops and timber accumulate extra salt of their roots than of their different tissues. Dandelion and yellow dock are each sodium-rich, with dandelion roots containing round 76mg in every 100g of plant materials.

Dandelion roots will be eaten both uncooked or cooked, providing you with greater than only a portion of your every day salt consumption. In addition they include very important nutritional vitamins and minerals and are an honest supply of fiber. 

Different roots want extra cautious preparation. Within the US, the roots of the hickory tree have been a conventional supply of salt. 

Directions

1. Dig up the hickory roots utilizing a survival ax or shovel.
2. Wash the roots totally and chop them into small items.
3. Convey a pot of water to boil and add the chopped-up root. 
4. Because the minerals leach from the plant materials, the water will flip black, at which level you may take away the roots, leaving the water behind. 
5. Proceed to simmer the water till all of the liquid has evaporated and also you’re left with a black sticky substance.

Whereas it could not look or style notably appetizing, this unusual substance is full of edible salts, together with sufficient sodium to maintain muscle cramps at bay.

Learn extra details about essentially the most useful trees for survivalists and preppers.

#6 Animal Blood 

Ingesting animal blood isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, however it’s a solution to get the salt you want out within the wilderness. Though principally made up of water, the liquid portion, or plasma, comprises salt and different ions that make it “remarkably similar to seawater.”

Animals want salt simply as a lot as we do, and every kind of herbivores will actively hunt down mineral salt deposits and salt-rich crops to complement their diets. 

Some animals include extra sodium than others. For instance, a 3oz serving of squirrel meat would provide you with round 88mg of sodium, whereas the identical quantity of deer meat comprises greater than twice that at 228mg. 

Meaning you don’t should try to chug down a liter of animal blood – simply consuming the flesh will assist increase your sodium consumption!

Conclusion

Armed with the knowledge on this article, you need to have the ability to discover sufficient pure sources of salt to keep up your sodium ranges for months. 

You may wrestle to reap rock salt, as I doubt you’ve included mining equipment in your bug-out bag, however different sources are extra available. 

Don’t overlook that you simply additionally get some salt out of your survival meals, so sourcing meat and crops with a excessive sodium content material will assist maintain your physique functioning and add a bit taste to your meals.