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Chances are, if you follow mainstream medical advice or watch the news, you’ve seen some negative press .
In fact, the low-sodium industry is booming!
Thank goodness that this sodium reduction, along with a low-fat diet and eating more whole grains has so greatly increased the health of Americans over the last few decades…
What’s that? It hasn’t?
Well maybe you can see the , or , but you agree that too much salt isn’t healthy at all.
And you’d be right… if we are talking about the chemically produced table salt that is added to most processed foods, meats and snacks.
Table salt, which is 97% Sodium Chloride (NaCl) is chemically produced, bleached and devoid of most other nutrients. It also contains .
This type is not naturally occurring and in fact, when salt-water fish are placed in salt water made with table salt… they die.
It is also devoid of the many trace minerals that the body needs… so it is a wise decision to avoid it.
The problem is, that when companies reduce table salt in their foods to make it low-sodium, they don’t replace it with trace minerals and healthier options, they often replace it with MSG and other chemical additives to achieve the flavor.
Unfortunately, many of the studies done on sodium consumption use table salt in the research, so there is now a body of evidence showing that salt consumption is harmful, when in reality, no distinction has been made between chemically created table salt and natural forms containing trace minerals.
If you have any table salt around your house, I’d recommend that you stop using it immediately. Don’t throw it out though… you can use it in and . (Just don’t eat it!)
To the degree that table salt is bad, is healthy, necessary and good.
While the research linking regular table salt to disease and health disorders is correct, we’ve thrown out the baby with the (salt) water.
Consider this:
While many accept the common belief that high sodium intake leads to hypertension:
In a study of 60,000 nurses followed by Harvard researchers, those whose diet was very low in calcium or magnesium had a 23 percent greater chance of developing high blood pressure over four-years. ()
Other studies have shown that it is actually proper calcium, and other mineral balance, not sodium reduction, that improves blood pressure, hypertension and other problems.
In fact,
The notion that salt intake and blood pressure were intimately related emerged early in this century when doctors discovered that they could lower the high blood pressure of people with kidney failure by feeding them a rice-based diet extraordinarily low in salt.
Unconvinced, this eventually led to more comprehensive research on worldwide salt intake, which found that:
And in 1989, researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine decided to re-evaluate the link between salt and blood pressure through a study of more than 10,000 people in 52 cultures around the world. Participants ranged from Yanomamo Indians in Brazil, whose diet is almost salt free, to residents of northern China, who eat as much salt in a day as a Yanomamo eats in three years. Instead of merely estimating salt consumption, the researchers calculated precise values based on urine samples. They took into consideration obesity and alcohol consumption. Among their findings were that except in a few places with extremely low salt consumption, the amount of sodium in the diet was unrelated to the prevalence of hypertension in a society or to its average blood pressure. Moreover, although the high rates of hypertension in the United States had long been considered a function of this country’s love for salty processed food, the study placed Americans right in the middle ofthe world’s salt intake curve.
Additionally:
These are all conditions that can result from too little sodium and trace minerals and the resulting mineral imbalance.
It is important to note that regular table salt can actually make these conditions worse because it will create more mineral imbalance by delivering too much sodium and chloride and not enough of the other necessary minerals.
Through our efforts to remove processed table salt with the low-sodium craze (a good thing to remove) we have created a deficiency of necessary minerals.
The negatively charged ions in real salt, especially when combined with water, support a host of hormonal, chemical and electrical processes in the body.
Its trace mineral concentration makes it especially supportive of nerve and heart health. (Scary, since cardiac patients are often told to reduce sodium). Some doctors have even had success in improving irregular heart beat and lessening neurological disorders with proper doses of real salt.
Some other health-related processes that salt can support are:
At our house, we have several different types of natural salt (black lava, Celtic sea salt, etc.) but our favorite BY FAR is .
This type of salt is found deep in the Himalayan mountains and contains all 84 trace minerals needed by the body. It is naturally pink or red and has a much milder flavor.
In my opinion, this is the highest quality salt available, as it is from the mineral rich Himalayan mountains and is not affected by the chemicals and toxins that are increasing in quantity even in natural sea salt.
I add this type of salt to almost all of our foods, and even take it plain in water at times.
Other real salts like and Black Lava Salt () are also beneficial.
If you aren’t used to consuming salt, it may be difficult to make a transition back to healthy consumption (though many people find that their bodies crave it and respond very well immediately).
If you aren’t used to eating enough, there are some easy ways you can increase your intake:
We get our , which is the cheapest and highest quality source I’ve found.
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