Salt, a common condiment to sprinkle over your chips and that’s all it’s useful for? Don’t you believe it, there’s a lot more to this humble mineral than meets the eye.

1. Salt is used to remove traces of water from aviation fuel after it is purified
2. Salt can be used as an antiseptic, dissolved in a bowl of warm water for aching feet and applied directly to mouth ulcers. It was also used in the past to rub into wounds inflicted on criminals when they were flogged.
3. Salt on its own or mixed with grit is used to keep roads clear of ice
4. Salt kills slugs
5. Salt was first used to preserve food in the middle ages
6. Potato crisps with salt in a little blue bag were first manufactured in the UK in 1920
7. Some foods that are high in salt don’t taste salty. That is sometimes because they have a lot of sugar in them, some biscuits and breakfast cereals for example.
8. Salt has more than 14,000 known uses
9. Salt has been used to seed clouds to produce rain in some desert areas
10. Artists can use salt to produce snowflake effects in watercolour