We're Oversalting Our Food, And It's Not What You Think

Thanks also to our Patreon patrons:
- BurmansHealthShop
- Jeff Straathof
- Mark
- Maarten Bremer
- Today I Found Out
- Duhilio Patiño
- Alberto Bortoni
- Avi Yashchin
- Valentin
- Nicholas Buckendorf
- Antoine Coeur

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Want to learn more about the topic in this week’s video? Here are some keywords/phrases to get your googling started:

soil salinity - when soils have high salt levels that have adverse effects on plants
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Credits:
With the MinuteEarth team:
Peter Reich

Script Writer: Peter Reich
Script Editor: Kate Yoshida
Video Illustrator: Omkar Bhagat
Video Director: Emily Elert

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References:

Pitman, M. G., & Läuchli, A. (2002). Global impact of salinity and agricultural ecosystems. In Salinity: environment-plants-molecules (pp. 3-20). Springer Netherlands.

Qadir, M., Quillérou, E., Nangia, V., Murtaza, G., Singh, M., Thomas, R.J., Drechsel, P. and Noble, A.D. (2014). Economics of salt-induced land degradation and restoration. Natural Resources Forum, 38: 282–295. doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12054

Schofield, N. J. (1992). Tree planting for dryland salinity control in Australia. Agroforestry Systems, 20(1-2), 1-23.

Image Credits:

flickr user brewbooks
Henry Hemming
Paige Rajnus
USDA NRCS South Dakota

[Demonskunk]

gotta give you credit. it really wasn't what I thought!

[ohmyflippiningod]

Damn this is why we have agricultural schools. Farming ain't no simple thing

[MinuteEarth]

Several people have written to complain about the inaccuracy of our depiction and explanation of soil-root water relations. Given that our MinuteEarth videos are, already, "longer than a minute" we sometimes are forced to represent processes in very simplified fashion. Explaining soil and plant water potential and resulting hydraulic flow completely and clearly and in plain language in a mere sentence or two is perhaps impossible, but at the very least was more challenging than we were able to do. What we tried to represent in the very simple drawing was the notion of a semi-permeable membrane that would allow water to pass into the plant, but not salt, and simultaneously that would illustrate that when salt levels were high in the soil solution this would act to slow the flow of water into the roots. Yes, a more detailed explanation would be that the water potential gradient is the driving force (and water always moves from high to low water potential); when soil water is fresh (not salty), water potential is more negative in the root than in the soil solution, and more negative yet at the leaf than root, and more negative in the air than the leaf- creating a gradient that “pulls” the water upwards through the soil-plant-air continuum. When solutes, like salt, are in high concentration in the soil water, that lowers the water potential in the soil water to levels that can be as low or lower than the water potential in the roots, slowing or stopping the influx of water.

[schwarzerritter]

So that is why the Knights who say Ni wanted a shrubbery.

[Dusers]

"if we salt our food before we taste it, we might not be able to taste it at all"

damn son.

[cyancoyote]

This saltiness is nothing compared to my teammates on CS:GO....

[natalie]

I'm a crop and as I'm watching this video I feel very insalted :/

[GregoryTheGrster]

Couldn't farmers use pepper? Salt and pepper go together.

[Titanic-wobq]

0:12 What I'm more worried about is that fact that there are salt containers in the soil..

[cadr]

we did it. we craved the mineral too hard. it's ruining us.

[AnstonMusic]

Uhh, clogs up?

No, it reverses osmosis?

[TheLolzKnight]

I understand that you didn't want to explain about concentration gradients and how they effect root water absorption, but please don't spread disinformation/misinformation about "Salt molecules clogging up the plants plumbing".

[TheRealNeoThe]

"Does it have too much salt?"

"Na"

[MRInuzaki]

wow very informative and i never knew something like this could happen ... i love learning new things

[spookyskelebloke]

>salt
>molecules

Nice job guys. Nice job.

[TDPEquinox]

The overage of salt is from the tears of my csgo enemies.

[FeHearts]

These are my favorite videos, about problems that are affecting us now and how we can or are solving it. Gives me hope for humanity

[Lexyvil]

Very informative video. This was something I didn't know prior. I probably learned what one would normally learn in an hour class in just 3 minutes.

[mycelium]

One time I was exploring Google satellite maps for fun. I was looking around Egypt, and in the middle of the desert I saw loads of green circles. I was confused, but now I know. Thanks!

[EebstertheGreat]

Sodium chloride does not generally form individual molecules except in the gaseous state. Solid sodium chloride is an ionic crystal, which is why it can effectively block the path of water.