Salt

[bulrush]

Letting ocean water evaporate is good. You will also get trace minerals from that.

When you sweat you release salt, potassium, and other minerals. Sodium chloride replenishes the sodium part, so salt is very important. You might do some research on where the ancient Egyptians got their "salts" to make mummies. ("Salt" is also a generic term for a class of water soluble compounds.) They used sodium chloride, salt peter (potassium nitrate?), spices, and some other things.

You could also go to downtown Detroit, drill straight down. Underneath Detroit is a HUGE salt mine. It was going for like 80 years, and I think they stopped taking salt out of it because they thought it might destabilize the city.

[flandersander]

Does anyone know if its possible to sterilize the massive salt content of alkali? I know there are lots of alkali sloughs around here but i'm not sure if you could boil the water out and use the salt to salt foods or make a sort of bush jerky. does anybody know if it would work? I think you might have to wash your pot quite soon after boiling alkali as it will rust like crazy!

[Rick]

There is a wee bit of difference between an alkali such as sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide or calcium carbonate and sodium chloride. I'll make my jerky at home.

[Catfish]

Why do you want to extract salt?

Salt is essential in a survival situation. When you're barely clinging to life, there's nothing worse than bland french fries.

[launchpad]

salt is in blood old timers usd bufflo blood in there bread sow it wood ries its good to insted of flour us acorns

[canid]

yeah; that or a primitive artistic depiction of a mushroom cloud which also happens to catch fish...

as for food preservation: why not just use the firewood you intend to use to boil the plant material to smoke your food instead. it would last longer that way.

interestingly enough, the salt potassium carbonate [carbonate of potash] can constitute up to 10% of wood ash. this salt is also hygroscopic and is used widely as a dessicant in various manufacturing processes. it will aid in the drying of meats as salt does, and all the better [and quicker] if combined with smoking or full sun drying.

i like smoking mostly because it helps keep insects away, though of course it also contributes it's own to the flavor and keeping power of the food.

[warman87]

i read somewere that you use the roots of a hickory tree and boil them and it produces a brownish black goop on the bottom of the container then u just evaporate the water and let the goop dry and you have a sort of basic salt or you can lick the inside of some caves

[nell67]

Lick the inside of the caves?? Ugh,bat guano

[MCBushbaby]

In the bush you can use a simple pot setup to boil away the water from urine, salt water, or sweat (for sweat you may need a large fat man who perspires like a tap). Similar method to make maple syrup from watery sap

[Rick]

Mitch - You're joking about the urine, right? Urine is a combination of water, electrolytes, nitrogen, acids or alkalines (hydrogen ions or bicarbonate ions), dissolved heavy metals, glucose and even bacteria (the urine itself is sterile but it can pick up bacteria from the surrounding skin when excreted) and urea (or carbamide). All of that would be left behind (except the water) once the water is boiled off. I'll stick to my salt shaker.

[MCBushbaby]

Mitch - You're joking about the urine, right? Urine is a combination of water, electrolytes, nitrogen, acids or alkalines (hydrogen ions or bicarbonate ions), dissolved heavy metals, glucose and even bacteria (the urine itself is sterile but it can pick up bacteria from the surrounding skin when excreted) and urea (or carbamide). All of that would be left behind (except the water) once the water is boiled off. I'll stick to my salt shaker.

I wasn't going to go into details but phospherous was discovered from urine by alchemists in the 1600s. From wikipedia:

* Boil urine to reduce it to a thick syrup.
* Heat until a red oil distills up from it, and draw that off.
* Allow the remainder to cool, where it consists of a black spongy upper part and a salty lower part.
* Discard the salt, mix the red oil back into the black material.
* Heat that mixture strongly for 16 hours.
* First white fumes come off, then an oil, then phosphorus.
* The phosphorus may be passed into cold water to solidify.

For salt extraction just keep the salty layer and discard the rest. True, a little more complicated than just boiling down.

I'm admitting I've never done it myself, and never will most likely, but it's been discussed on other sites before for backwoods meat salting

[Rick]

I would never do it because of the other stuff that's contained in the urine. Salt is just too plentiful to do something like that.

[trax]

Phosphorous was discovered from urine? Oh my God, I'm just imagining some guy that got up for a pee in the night and it was glowing . Bet that scared the piss out of him, LMAO

[crashdive123]

Phosphorous was discovered from urine? Oh my God, I'm just imagining some guy that got up for a pee in the night and it was glowing . Bet that scared the piss out of him, LMAO

What???? You never slept between the missile tubes on a submarine?

[bulrush]

Only some types of phosphorus glow and are unstable in air. There are several types of phosphorus, red and white I think.

[Rick]

Yeah, but look at his avatar. He glows red. I'll bet cars come to a screeching halt when he walks down the street.

[trax]

What???? You never slept between the missile tubes on a submarine?

As a matter of fact I haven't, but now I'm thinking...hey I should go camping with crashdive...stick him alone in a tent with food and ta-da!...microwave!

[Rick]

Ah, but does he ding when the food is ready?

[trax]

Well he will, just don't believe that thing in front he wants you to grab is a timer....know what I mean?

[crashdive123]

hey it's a bell. Ding.....Dong....you decide.