However, we all know that there were many poor people in ancient times. Those who could not afford salt also had many ways to supplement salt. The simplest and most direct way is to do it yourself. For people in coastal areas, salt is not a big problem. If there is a lack of salt, they can get salt by drying the sea water themselves. As long as they do not sell it, eating it by themselves is not a big problem. For poor people in inland areas, if there is no sea water, there is no way to get table salt, so they will use other foods instead of salt. Among these foods that can replace salt, the most typical one is chili pepper. Chili pepper contains a certain amount of iodide ions. By eating chili pepper, you can indirectly replenish salt.

Although the price of salt is not unacceptably expensive, people are still very frugal in eating salt. According to records. During the Tang Dynasty, a family of three had three meals a day, and salt was only eaten in one meal, or only when doing heavy work. During the late Qing Dynasty, ordinary people would only take a small piece of salt and poke it with chopsticks to eat a little bit.

According to historical records, the purification of salt can be traced back to the time of the Yellow Emperor. According to the "Shiben" record, "When the emperor came to power, his vassal surnamed Zuisha began to boil milk with sea water and fry it into salt. The colors were green, yellow, white, black and purple." This shows that the salt at that time was made of Boiled in sea water. Under the ancient small-scale peasant economy, most production necessities could be self-sufficient. Salt was the only difficult thing to produce, so salt has become an important lifeline connecting economies across the country. In this case, the state has a monopoly on the salt trade because salt trade is closely related to state revenue.

The price of salt is high not because of its high cost, it is just basking in the sun in sea water. However, the transportation price of salt determines the insufficient supply of salt in the interior. Table salt is generally produced in coastal areas and is relatively rare inland. Although there are some salt fields and salt wells in the interior, sea salt is generally the main salt. In ancient times, there were no roads, and long-distance transportation was borne by people. Transport costs from the coast to the interior drive up the price of salt.