Salt
is such an important part of our lives. Wars have been fought, lives have been
lost, and blood has been spilt!! Our very own Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi aka Bapu
aka Mahatma Gandhi, used salt as a symbol of protest and his march to Dandi is
of truly great importance in India’s freedom.
Strictly
speaking, `salt’ is a chemical term
for a substance produced by the reaction of an acid with a base. There are many
salts, many of which are edible and many of which are mixed. Of course you must
know that the salt we eat is almost always Sodium Chloride or NaCl, which
actually tastes salty. Other salts, even if they contribute not so pleasant
bitter or sour tastes, may be edible and may be of value to the human diet.
It’s
one ingredient that is universally accepted as being the enhancer of flavour in
food. Yes salt enhances the existing flavours. Sugar does not necessarily do
so. Sugar changes the flavour as do many other ingredients. All our food has
salt, sometime too much, sometime unhealthily too much, sometimes we eat so
much of it that it becomes unhealthy. Why, simply because we love the taste of
salt. Salt is important as a preservative too. Think about the times without refrigerators.
Medically, we need salt to survive. An adult’s body contains about 250 grams of
salt which is continuously being lost and replenished. It’s true that we do
consume much more than we need but, happily, our bodies are capable of
excreting salt. Sometimes, we have a problem in getting rid of excess salt.
High blood pressure, in many cases [but not by any means all] can be controlled
by reducing our salt intake.
I
remember when I was quite young, the kitchen always had two salt containers.
One was a porcelain jar with a lid in which non refined or coarse salt was
kept. This was used in cooking. This was called `jada namak’. During the monsoons in Bombay this salt used to absorb
so much water that it was quite useless. The other jar contained table salt.
This was refined and used, as the name suggests, on the table to salt your
food. At some point our collective Nanny i.e. the Government of India decreed
that all of us were very unhealthy as coarse salt did not contain Iodine in
adequate quantities. The result was that coarse salt became virtually outlawed and all that is available is table salt which has
to be iodised. Buying coarse salt today is fairly difficult.
Iodising
salt necessarily meant that the poor salt worker toiling in the hot sun was now
unable to sell salt in the open market. All that would happen was that corporate
would buy the salt, process it and sell it to us, neatly packaged, wonderfully
advertised, at huge profit. Such is life with our Nanny in charge. I finally
gave up buying coarse salt and started to use Iodised salt a few years ago.
A
few days ago we were running out of salt so HRH the Queen of Kutch, (incidentally a lot of our salt in India comes from Kutch), in a rush, bought Low Sodium Iodised
Salt. Now starts the point of this blog!
1 Kg
of normal salt costs Rs 14/-. 1 Kg of Low Sodium Salt costs Rs 21/- which is
50% more than normal salt. When using the Low Sodium Salt, I found that it did
not dissolve as easily as normal table salt and it left a residue. Furthermore I
found that on adding this Low Sodium Salt to water, the water becomes and then
remains cloudy. I was pretty upset and decided to probe further which is when I
discovered the huge difference in price. Obviously, there is a large marketing
campaign backed by cute advertising to sell you and me this Low Sodium Salt which
will help us all control out blood pressure. Frankly, finally getting Kisan
Baburao Hazare off our TV screens has reduced my blood pressure and it cost me
nothing.
So
armed with my camera I set out to see what the difference between Low Sodium
Salt and normal salt really was and why you should pay 50% more for it.
Firstly,
the Low Sodium Salt packets say, very craftily, that “Salt Plus has less
sodium. Diets low in sodium may reduce the risk of high blood pressure.” Note
the use of the word “may”. Then they say that the Low Sodium Salt has 15% less
sodium. Now how much is 15% in a teaspoon of salt? Literally, a pinch. Why not
save the 5 bucks that you pay for Low Sodium Salt and just tell your cook to
add a bit less salt? That is just too simple and logical I guess.
Looking
at the ingredient list on a packet of salt. Yes, for f**ks sake salt has a list
of ingredients, what is the world coming to? Low Sodium Salt has two additional
ingredients, namely, Potassium Chloride and Calcium Carbonate. Now, if my
school chemistry is to be relied upon, is Calcium Carbonate not blackboard
chalk? Yes it is. Would you eat it? Would you have eaten it when in school? No.
Then why eat it when you are rich and leading a lifestyle to envy? Yuck. Now
you know why when you add Low Sodium Salt to water it leaves a residue and
makes your water cloudy. You are eating f***ing blackboard chalk!! If your
young son tried to eat blackboard chalk you would send him to the corner as
punishment and here is your caring wife serving you blackboard chalk in your
fragrant Mutton Dum Biryani and Onion Raita! I say send her to the corner if
you dare.
After
all this ranting, why is salt a good investment opportunity. It’s not the extra
Rs 7/- that you pay for Low Sodium Salt, but think of how Marico, Tata
Chemicals and ITC are collecting Rs 7/- from each one of us to give us chalk.
They must be laughing all the way to the bank. Despite the plummeting stock
market have you seen the prices of an ITC, Maroco or Tata Chemicals share? October 2008 was the time the Global meltdown happened, Lehman Brothers vaporised and there was only gloom and doom.Today the markets are not much better. India's growth rate is a poor 7% and falling. Stock markets have melted, the dollar is soaring and what do we have?
Company
|
Price
29 October 2008
|
Price
today
|
ITC
|
Rs. 79
|
After 1:1 Bonus Rs 200 i.e. Rs 400
|
Marico
|
Rs 53
|
Rs 153
|
Tata Chem
|
Rs 165
|
Rs 320
|
All
this on the back of Low Sodium Salt? I don’t know. Your guess is as good as
mine. Don’t say I did not tell you to buy shares in companies making salt.
The
share prices from 29th October 2008 to today are as different as
chalk and cheese.
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