If anyone’s going to stand up for salt, it’s gonna be the Salt Institute. Yahoo Shine’s Green blog sifts through the organization’s 14,000 uses for sodium chloride and comes up with 46 of its favorites. Here are a few salt uses from that list you may never have considered:

*Nut shelling. Soak nuts in salt water for a couple hours to make it easier to disrobe them.

Cleaning your oven. After you’ve finished cooking, salt the fresh glop of cheese, or whatever, that’s spilled to the bottom of your oven. The salt will crustify the glop and make it easier to clean once it cools down.

*Washing your hands. Salt is apparently a natural odor absorber, especially in a vinegar solution.

Healing stings. It seems tossing salt onto the wound, at least when that wound is a bee sting, will salve the pain rather than magnify it.

Preserving cheese. Stave off mold by wrapping cheese in a salt water-soaked towel.

Salt also made for a pretty decent summer action flick.

What’s your favorite unorthodox salt use?

46 smart uses for salt [Yahoo]

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