Random GAPS Diet Hint #3: Share Salt with Your Livestock

I don’t know if you have livestock or not. Maybe you should get some, just so you have an excuse to buy fifty pound bags of salt from Redmond’s. Just kidding.

Well, sort of.

If you are on the GAPS Diet, you probably know that using real, unrefined salt {and please note: if your salt is white, it has been refined, no matter what the label says–salt in its natural form is not uniform in color} is imperative.

So here’s the dirty little secret about unrefined salt: it is darn expensive. Your days of buying a salt shaker for a buck are over.

Unless, of course, you do what I did.

Ahem.

Let’s talk prices. I just looked at my co-op prices on salt. They carry all the unrefined types–the grey Celtic sea salt, the pink Himalayan salt, and, my personal favorite, the red salt from Redmond’s out of Utah.

The grey Celtic salt will cost you $3.85 for one pound. If you buy in bulk, it gets cheaper per pound, but never goes below $2.82/lb. At its cheapest, this is $0.18/oz.

The pink Himalayan salt is $5.10 for one pound. It, too, can be bought in huge bulk bags, and that gets you a pretty reasonable price: $1.52/lb. At its cheapest, you still pay just under $0.10/oz.

And then comes the Redmond’s salt. A 9-ounce salt shaker will cost you $3.35. A 1.5-pound bag will put you out $5.75. Again, you can buy in bulk, but it’ll cost you $2.12/lb. At its cheapest, you pay $0.13/oz.

Guess what I pay for my salt? I pay $0.15/lb. That’s right. I pay less per pound than what most of you are paying per ounce.

You know why?

Because I don’t buy salt for humans.

I have always given our animals free access to unrefined salt. We keep it in buckets and they take what they need as they need it. It doesn’t rain much here, so I don’t have to worry about it melting away. I use Redmond’s #10 fine animal salt*. This is unrefined salt, crushed and put through a sieve so that the crystals are not over a certain size. Nothing is added.

When I buy a fresh 50-pound bag {for just over seven dollars, mind you}, I pull out a few gallons for us and store it in my kitchen. It goes through a salt grinder just as well as coarse salt, and it can still be measured {without grinding} with spoons and put into soups and sauces like regular salt. We use our grinder as a salt shaker, and the rest of the time I use it as it is because it dissolves while I’m cooking.

People ask me if I worry about debris because it’s not for humans. All I can say is, I’ve been doing this for quite a while now and I have never, ever had a problem.

Ever.

We use tons and tons of salt. My children even grab crystals and eat them plain. I never worry about it because it is in its completely natural form and it only costs me pennies {if that}.

So my hint for today is simple: get a goat, feed it salt, and keep some for yourself.

The end.

*Warning: Not all of Redmond’s animal salt products are in their plain, natural state. You must read labels well or you will end up with a product fortified for sheep, which have nutritional needs that are different from humans.