One of my most respected teachers, Sally Fallon, said that God didn’t give us salt-tasting buds to torture us, but because we are supposed to use and enjoy it. Salt is essential to bare survival, let alone good health. No study about the long-term consequences of salt deprivation has ever come to conclusion, because the subjects involved have every time become so weak after only a few weeks that, invariably, the studies have been suspended.
Every traditional culture has always used salt in some fashion. Some that didn’t have easy access to it would go long distances, even undergo great dangers, to get the precious salt. Others used the — very salty — blood from game in food preparation. In Africa, ashes of sodium-rich marsh grasses were added to food. Seacoast peoples have always prized dried seafood — with its high content of salt. The fact that salt was used as currency in many parts of the world well into the 19th century speaks of its importance.
Why is salt so important?
For starters, salt is the most important source of chloride, which the stomach needs to produce hydrochloric acid. This acid is crucial to protein digestion — is this why any meat tastes terrible without salt? Chloride also activates the production of amylase enzymes needed for carbohydrate digestion and it’s essential to proper growth and functioning of the brain.
Salt is also the primary source of sodium. Since all body fluids — blood, plasma, urine, sweat — contain sodium, we could say that sodium is essential to life. Amongst others biochemical processes, salt is needed for water balance regulation, muscle contraction and expansion, nerve stimulation, acid-alkaline balance, and adrenal glands function.
Though not all salt is the same…
Salt is not meant to be only chloride and sodium, sometimes enriched with inorganic iodine — as the food industry wants us to believe. Unrefined sea salt is an important source of good iodine, which we only need in trace amounts, but it is also essential to a number of processes including fat metabolism, thyroid function and the production of sex hormones.
Common white salt — like most of our convenience foods — lacks nutritional value. It is processed at high temperatures that change its molecular structure and removes minerals — which are then packaged to be sold as supplements. It contains additives — including aluminum which is one mineral we definitely don’t need — and anticaking agents (when it rains, it pours, remember?). The looks might be attractive, but when it comes to good salt, you want it to be pink, gray, or beige, indicating the presence of minerals. (To me, this is more attractive.)
White salt is guilty of salt’s bad rep. Do you experience fluid retention, or iodine toxicity? Do you suffer from high blood pressure, or kidney disease? Then try this: throw out the salt shaker, stop eating all processed foods loaded with sodium, and drastically reduce your eating out. Use only mineral-rich, unrefined salt in your cooking and — I guarantee it — you’ll see a difference.
I know this is easier said than done, and I don’t expect you to make changes like this at the snap of my fingers. But you should know that you can dramatically improve your health by tweaking your diet a little.
Some salts I like:
Real Salt
Celtic Sea Salt
Himalayan Crystal Salt
Atlantic Sea Salt
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