Page 24 - chemistry

Discussion

The sodium chloride has been used to flavor and preserve foods for thousands of
years. As a preservative, salt helps to prevent spoilage and helps to keep foods

like ready-to-eat meats and cheeses safe to eat.

Besides that, salting is used because most bacteria, fungi and other potentially
pathogenic organisms cannot survive in a highly salty environment, due to the

hypertonic nature of salt. Any living cell in such an environment will become
dehydrated through osmosis and die or become temporarily inactivated. Fine
grained salts were more expensive but also absorbed moisture faster than coarse
salt.

Taking too much of sodium chloride will cause extra blood pressure caused due
to the intake of too much salts because salt put extra strain on the inside of the
arteries. This is turn forces the muscle of the artery wall to become stronger and

thicker, which constricts the arteries more. The blood pressure gets further
raised, which may ultimately causes the arteries to burst or becoming narrow that
they get clogged up easily and cutting the oxygen.