What’s a pretzel without salt? When you go swimming at the beach and have a wound—salt water stings, but isn’t it amazing how fast it heals. How about this: when you have a sore in your mouth or throat, the dentist tells you to gargle with salt water. Nasty but effective! Two thousand years ago salt was a precious commodity and quite expensive. In fact, Roman soldiers were paid in salt. They called their allowance of salt solarium, from which we get our word salary. Shoppers, something that is on sale—for salt—we feel like we’ve conquered the economic Goliath. Because salt was considered valuable at one time, when the phrase “to salt an account” is used, we mean to make it more valuable. So, what’s the deal about salt?