Salt and its uses

Salt is one of the most precious commodities of the planet, with timeless value; its contribution to human life is exceptional, mainly due to its wide range of use for various purposes.
 
Even in early antiquity salt seems to have had a special place in human life. In many cases salt was used as currency; in fact, Roman legionaries were paid in salt. This is why their pay was called salarium, from the Latin word for salt [sal]. Furthermore, wars are known to have taken place over the control of salt. An important turning point in history was also the symbolic route followed by Gandhi (1930) to the coastline of India, so that he might collect salt for the poor, as a gesture against British authorities, which imposed tax on salt trade.    
 
Today, there are about 2,000 uses for salt, but it is impressive that only 20% of the world salt production is used to meet human dietary needs. A significant percentage of salt is used in the chemical industry and for snow clearance purposes.   

Indicatively, salt is used in the food processing industry, in leather tanning, in the production of animal fodder and paints, in dairy farming, in meat, fish and vegetable curing, in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, in textile dying, for water softening purposes and in numerous other sectors.