How important is salt for our body?

Salt is life

You can taste the salt content of 0.9 percent in your body, namely in your tears. The salt content in the body is between 150 and 300 grams. Without salt, the cells would not be viable, the organs would not function and the water balance would be out of balance.

Sodium chloride, better known as table salt, is an important mineral for our body. It regulates the water balance and tissue tension and is important for the function of nerves and muscles. Without salt, we couldn't move a muscle - and not even think. Salt also plays an important role in bone structure and digestion. During digestion, for example, the salt component chloride is required for stomach acid.

However, too much salt can be harmful. Salt, for example, stimulates the appetite and can lead to obesity. A high salt consumption can also change the composition of the intestinal bacteria and thus impair the immune system. Excess salt has to be removed from the body. The kidneys, which are responsible for this, are additionally burdened with this task. 70 to 80% of our salt consumption comes from processed foods. Bread, meat, sausage and cheese contain a lot of salt. The WHO recommends about 5 g of salt per day. This corresponds to about a teaspoon of salt a day.

Where does Switzerland get its salt from?

Since Switzerland is a landlocked country, it was almost entirely dependent on salt imports until the 19th century. It was imported, for example, from Tyrol, Bavaria, Burgundy, the Camargue, Venice and North Africa. Despite the discovery of considerable salt deposits in Bex, Canton of Vaud, in the middle of the 16th century, Switzerland remained dependent on imports. A German drilling specialist, Carl Christian Friedrich Glenck (1779–1845), changed that in 1836. At a depth of 135 meters, near Muttenz (Canton Basel), he came across a 6-meter-thick layer of rock salt. The Swiss mining sites Riburg, Schweizerhalle and Bex are still active today and produce between 400,000 and 600,000 tons of salt annually. By the way, our Swiss Alpine salt for the ARCTO salt and pepper shaker comes from the Bex salt mines.

As a result of the evaporation of the primordial ocean 200 million years ago, up to 100 meters thick salt layers formed in northwestern Switzerland, the Jura and the Swiss Plateau, which are covered by yonger rock.