Salt

Byline: DR. S.M. ALAM and M.A. KHAN Sodium chloride also known as table salt, rock salt, common salt or halite is a mineral composed primarily of sodium and chlorine. It is essential for human diet, animal life in small quantities, but is harmful to human, animals, and plants in excess. The taste of salt (saltiness) is one of the basic human tastes. It is produced in different forms: unrefined salt (such as sea salt), refined salt (table salt), and iodized salt. It is a crystalline solid, white, pale pink or light gray in color, normally obtained from seawater or rock deposits. Edible rock salts may be slightly grayish in color because of mineral content. Chloride and sodium ions, the two major components of salt, are needed by all known living creatures in small quantities.