How does salt preserve any thing?
It preserves foods by lowering the amount of “free” water molecules in foods. Bacteria need moisture in order to thrive, so without enough “free” water, they cannot grow well in foods that contain salt. It literally pulls the life-sustaining moisture from those harmful bodies, making them unable to grow or reproduce.
in former times, salt was the main preservative in foods because of its osmotic properties…it causes meat or whatever you are preserving to “sweat” away water by osmosis. when it osmotically removes water from the meat, it also creates a seal against any new water coming in. It also keeps things cold because when you apply it to an object, it lowers the freezing point of that object and makes it freeze more easily, preserving foods by cold.
