Posted on 02/09/2015 11:09:59 AM PST by mbarker12474
Does Sea Salt Threaten the Environment? February 06, 2015
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Scott in Hampton, Georgia. I'm glad you called, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello. It's good to talk to you, Rush. Um, I wanted to make you aware, if you're not already, about an impending environmental disaster. It involves the oceans, and it's being caused by the tendency of the higher-end restaurants to use real sea salt on their tables as seasoning. It's taking too much salt out of the oceans and the result of course is gonna be a decreased salinity of the oceans. That's going to affect the sea life, and I've not heard much about this.
RUSH: You know I'm glad you called about this actually because I was just asking my chef the other day -- who uses sea salt, by the way. Yu should know. My chef uses sea salt, and I asked, "What's the big deal with this? I mean, how's this any different than the other salt? I mean, why are we taking this stuff out of the sea? I mean, I didn't think we could eat that kind of salt. What's the big deal?" She said, "You know, all it is, it's just marketing, it's just to make the rich think they're getting something special. And it's not ground as fine as Morton's table salt is. It's just a game." She said, "You know, I just do it because it actually takes less of it since it's bigger chunks of it and so forth." But I had not heard of any threat to the environment over this.
CALLER: Well, there was a study done by a Professor Pablo Salazar, an expert out at Berkeley, and he's been testing the salinity of the Pacific now for the last 15 years, and he's detected a decrease in the amount of salt in the water. He's bringing it to the attention, I think, of the EPA, although I haven't heard that they've taken any action on it yet. But there's also another component of this. There's a racial component, because as you probably know, the salt in the sea contributes to the buoyancy of it, and as we all know black people tend to be less buoyant that white folks, and it's gonna result in their --
RUSH: Now wait.
CALLER: -- being able to enjoy the ocean less.
RUSH: Are you just throwing that in, or is that something that Professor Salazar said?
CALLER: Oh, no. No, no. That's just my own opinion, as a student of -- not a very serious student of -- physics, but I did know back in high school I learned that salt contributes to buoyancy. It makes you float more.
RUSH: Well, it does not. Have you ever swam in the Dead Sea?
CALLER: No, sir. I've never had an opportunity to do that.
RUSH: Well, if they ever run out of salt in the Pacific Ocean, Professor Salazar, don't worry about it. The Dead Sea is evaporating a little rapidly 'cause it doesn't get replenished as much with rain, but you cannot stay underwater in the Dead Sea. There is so much assault in the Dead Sea, it is so buoyant, you are absolutely right. But do you know I think when I was in Israel, somebody told me... I want to remember this right. Somebody told me that if you swallowed a cup of water from the Dead Sea you could die because the salt content is so contested. It's why it's the Dead Sea.
CALLER: Oh, goodness. I didn't know that.
RUSH: Yeah. If you ever go over there, since you are interested in sea salt and the environmental damage caused by the wanton mining of the stuff from the Pacific, you might be interested in checking that out.
CALLER: I will. I appreciate that. I hadn't thought of that. But for the people that can't afford a trip to the Dead Sea to swim, it's just gonna affect their ability to enjoy the ocean.
RUSH: Well, I know. If Professor Salazar and you happen to be right that buoyancy is threatened because of the mining of sea salt, it could be not just African-American, could be any number of people could drown, not having the right buoyancy, if they don't swim in the right salt body water.
CALLER: But not only that, it's gonna affect the... As we all know, the very lowest part of the food chain is the algae that grows in the oceans, and if this decrease in the salinity begins to hurt the algae, it's going to affect our entire food chain. And then those wealthy people that are enjoying the sea salt may not be able to have lobsters to put it on.
RUSH: It's an interesting thought. Interesting.
CALLER: Anyway, I just wanted to make you aware of that.
RUSH: It would also affect caviar. If you take the salt taste out of caviar, the rich would really be not happy about that. This is an interesting point. Pablo Salazar you say at the University of Berkeley. Okay. Sea salt. Look, folks, I don't know. Whoever heard of this stuff before? Sea salt? It is a marketing trick. It has to be. Now we found out that there may actually be some environmental depletion occurring as a result of this. See, it usually ends up being this way.
You do something to benefit the rich or to sell them something and the earth suffers.
That's how it works.
Scott, I appreciate the call. Thank you much.
END TRANSCRIPT
o.O
There is another obvious solution to the caller’s point...
If there is too much salt in the ocean, it should be taxed. Will help with the deficit.
If the ocean’s salt is starting to deplete, it should be subsidized. A bit more Monetary Easing will go a long way to paying for this.
If you think this is going to break the budget, then, to make up for the above... we should also tax de-salinized water, and subsidize too salty water.
No new legislation would be required to do the above, since the EPA rules on the waters of the earth.
I don’t routinely use table salt, which is iodized to prevent iodine deficiency. If we used only sea salt, would that lead to more goiter and stuff?
Okay. Good. Missed this.
It sure sounded like a gag, but nobody ever explicitly said so while I was listening.
Now if this was on NPR....
“There is so much assault in the Dead Sea”
Hope the battery component isn’t growing as well.
We use pink Himalayan salt, have done so since the 1990s. Just seems to taste better and is convenient to grind as desired in those grinder bottles that contain the salt chunks. That having been said, I just looked up an article on it by some doctor (I take what doctors say with a grain of salt). Says there are many trace minerals in it, including radium, uranium, polonium and thallium. I wouldn't worry, as those are extremely tiny traces if present at all, and naturally occur in many foods we eat (like bananas) in larger amounts.
As for sea salt, they recently closed down some very old sea salt ponds here in the SF Bay Area. They were huge, on the shore for miles, and there used to be giant mountains of salt in the dry ponds that one could see as you drove by them on the highway. There is plenty of salt in the ocean!
It was a joke call. In honor of Brian Williams, Rush clearly invited callers to call in with made up stories.
A much more pressing problem is the perverse and widespread use of baby oil. Doesn’t anyone realize how many babies they have to squeeze to get one bottle of oil?
Oh, the humanity! It must be outlawed for the children.
My father said one of his sisters had to do that for a brief time around WWII, and I think she just turned 90 a couple of weeks ago.
Disclaimer: Check with your MD...
ha! this must be satire... btw, i use sea salt and kosher salt... i am not rich...
No. Natural sea salts are rich in iodine, so it doesn't need to be artificially added in. Commercial refined salt is stripped of all it's minerals, chemically cleaned and bleached. The iodine that is added is synthetic. An anti-caking chemical is also added that can build up in your organs causing problems. Stay away from refined table salt.
Just think: the Great Lakes are said to contain 20% of the world's fresh water.
All us Creepy-Ass-Crackers, use white pepper!
http://www.mccormick.com/Spices-and-Flavors/Herbs-and-Spices/Spices/White-Pepper-Ground
All my Pants-Down-Homies use, black salt!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kala_Namak
I use an exotic salt blended using kidney residue harvested from Spotted Owls and caged “Coffee Civets.”
Just doing my part to save the ocean.
Wouldn’t this be racist against Himalayan Yetis?
Bourdain at “The French Laundry” was offered 200M year old sea salt from one of the Dakotas, iirc.
Those salt ponds in the Bay Area are why I avoid sea salt.
The ponds concentrate the salt as well as every pollutant in the bay. Probably why they closed them down.
This thread made me thirsty.
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