Walking the Saltway last evening – it runs in the gap between Banbury and the neighbouring village of Bodicote – I thought about the crucial role that salt has played in our society.
From pre-historic times salt has been a vital part of life.
To preserve food. As currency (the word “salary” comes from the same Latin
root). Essential to life itself.
It could only be panned in certain places in Britain and was
distributed throughout the country via the “Salt Ways”. Nobody seems to know
quite how old they are.
Our local one starts to the south-west of Birmingham at
Droitwich (famous for its salt pans) and runs through Stratford-upon-Avon to
Banbury. Where it goes after that, I’ve yet to discover. To Buckingham? To Oxford?
How surprised would our ancestors have been to be told nowadays that it’s killing us – high sodium intake being closely linked to
high blood pressure, and therefore to heart disease. At least that’s what Lewis
Dahl of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA established in the 1970s. Of
course, recently Dahl’s findings have been disputed.
So ‒
Friend or Foe?
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