Salt candy to prevent heat stroke

Like last summer, this summer has been very hot. The temperature is still around 30℃, and we easily get sweaty when walking outside. According to data from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency in Japan, 12,751 people were carried to hospitals from August 5 to 11 because of heat stroke. Even if you don’t need to go to hospitals, you may feel dizzy or numb in your limbs or have a headache when you get heat stroke.

Before the bus tour to Mt. Ibuki on August 11, I happened to see several kinds of shioame (塩飴) or salt candies sold in a supermarket. I learned for the first time that they are said to be good to prevent heat stroke. Even in other supermarkets, I saw a variety of salt candies from a simple traditional type to a fancy one that looked like a watermelon and had a flavor of it. It was difficult to choose, but I finally bought this pack because of the nice design and simple ingredients of the candies: sugar, glutinous starch syrup made from sweet potatoes, salt, plant oil, and emulsifier. The salt was extracted from deep-ocean water near Koshiki Island in Kagoshima Prefecture. In the red circle at the upper right of the pack, there was a message “Take salt after sweating.” According to some websites, when you eat a salt candy, you should also drink a glass of water, and you should be careful not to eat too many candies.

I took it for the hiking in Mr. Ibuki. As it wasn’t hot there because of fog, I didn’t need to eat the candies to prevent heat stroke. I just had them in the bus with my mother. From the name “salt candy”, I had expected that they would be very salty, but they weren’t. On the contrary, they had mild sweetness that somehow reminded me of butter candies. It may be because the candies contained glutinous starch syrup made from sweet potatoes. According to the website of the manufacturer, a company in Kagoshima Prefecture, their specialty is a sweetpotato candy.

Like this one, many salt candies contain salt from deep-ocean water around islands of Japan. They may become a nice souvenir from Japan when it is very hot in your country. There are also candies containing Himalayan rock salt. I wonder if they taste differently from those made from sea salt.