How Stuff Works: Salt

 
How Stuff Works: Salt produced by Discovery.

Plot: Most people know salt as the white, grainy substance in a shaker. However, salt remains the key for some of the most important, expensive, efficient, and dangerous discoveries, situations, and products known to humanity. As the only rock necessary for a healthy diet, salt allows humans to function. It also causes major health and development problems. To get salt, humans spend enormous amounts of resources and effort. Evaporation and mining provide salt, but also create vital wildlife sanctuaries and safe storage spaces. Salt may even provide an answer to the growing energy crisis, since it will combust when exposed to high radio frequencies. Humble salt, while often ignored, allows humans to exist.

Genre: Documentary, Science

Reading Level: Not Rated; while some episodes of the series focus on items like alcohol, this particular episode does not contain such references.

Similar Titles: Modern Marvels, How Stuff Works

Personal Thoughts: The episode runs like an updated version of the Eyewitness videos. It offers rapid "bits" of information in a fast-paced, graphics-heavy manner. While it does not contain the elaborate computer illustrations of the Eyewitness episodes, the information is more complete and the show is twice as long. Apparently, the show's series also focuses on other food items, such as corn and coffee, as well as other materials such as copper, lead, water, and rubber. The series offers an in-depth look at items often dismissed as mundane.