All I know is table salt is made of Sodium and Chlorine, while Epsom salt is made of the mineral Epsomite.
Are they interchangeable at all? Can I put table salt in my bath to help with sore muscles or sprinkle Epsom salt on my food? Why or why not?
(I may or may not be asking this bc I just realized I’m out of Epsom salt and was really looking forward to a bubble bath tonight.)
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Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate. Don’t eat it, it tastes bad (it’s also called bitter salt). It’s also a laxative.
It’s supposed to soften your skin, while regular salt is said to dry it out. I’ve never tried either, but a warm foot bath can be relaxing even with regular fresh water.
So “salt” is a chemistry term that refers to things with a net 0 charge based on their molecular structure (table salt is NaCl – the Sodium atom is positively charged and the Chlorine atom is negatively charged.)
Epsom salt is a different set of chemicals (MgSO4) and a different classification of salt (table salt is an alkali salt, epsom salt is an acid salt).
~~Given that your stomach acid is largely hydrochloric acid (HCl), and the “SO4” at the end of that chemical formula is similar to sulfuric acid’s H2SO4, I have to assume that epsom salt will not be a good time if you eat it.~~ I realized I should probably look this up and while it is used sometimes in salt substitutes, apparently it is bitter and that’s the main reason to not eat it, but it has uses in food so… Probably don’t just eat what you’d use for a bath, it won’t taste the same at the very least, and there is still the potential that it could be contaminated somehow (generally speaking, products we eat tend to have higher standards of cleanliness in manufacture than things that stay outside of our body)
Not interchangeable.
Epson salt is magnesium sulfate. It tastes awful and is a laxative. Terrible choice of seasoning!
No idea what table salt would do in a bath, but it wouldn’t be bad. It’s like swimming in the ocean.
So we tend to think of things as salt because they contain sodium (and chlorine, the other half of table salt that you should never consume without that sodium bond) and are often used to season food. Or to melt ice. As has already been pointed out, Epsom salt doesn’t contain sodium. It’s not used to season food because it tastes horrid, nor does it provide sodium that our body needs. In the same way, the elements that make up Epsom salt aren’t present in table salt. Table salt won’t do the same thing that Epsom salt does in a bath for your skin.
While the two substances share the same name, they might as well be the chemical difference between a banana and a baseball bat.
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