Salt, it seems like it’s the answer to everything.
– Sore Throat? Salt Water
– Icy Roads? Rock Salt
– Food Bland? Table Salt
– Dehydrated? Gatorade
– Tough Stains? Salt
– Chill Beverages Faster? Salt Water
– Spirits? Shot Gun (Salt Rounds)
There’s probably more uses.
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Long story short, most of this can be reduced to the ways that salt and water interact, which is actually an important part of how our bodies work.
Interaction one: Salt is an ionic compound, and changing the concentration of ions inside (or outside) of something can cause it to either absorb or expel water, which is called osmosis. ([Here’s](https://youtu.be/SrON0nEEWmo) a science experiment showing this mechanism in action, making eggs swell or shrivel up based on the concentrations of the liquids they’re put in.) All living things use osmosis to move water around across their cell membranes, and therefore depend on both ingesting the right ions and being in an environment of the correct concentration. NaCl, or salt, is by FAR the most plentiful and important of these ionic compounds, comprising a significant portion of the earth’s crust and being abundant both in the waters of the sea and the soils and rocks of the land. So a surprisingly high amount of the process of being alive boils down to “make sure you’ve got the right salt concentrations in the right places”. We crave salt, and enjoy adding it to our food and drinks, because it’s important for us to have the right amount of it to stay healthy. And by using the principles of osmosis to our advantage, we can also use salt to dry stuff out, preserving food by making it too salty to be hospitable to microorganisms, or reducing fluid-based swelling and discomfort of our throats and other body parts. (These preservative, purifying associations are also why ghosts are supposedly repelled by it.)
Interaction two: Once all those ions are floating around in water, it gets harder for the water molecules to form the tight grid alignment that makes up ice. So salty water can get colder than pure water without freezing, potentially as low as -6°Celsius. This is why salty water is better for cooling your drinks, and also why salt on the road can help melt ice and snow.
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