Salts That Your Body Needs

Salt has gone from an indispensable food flavouring to public enemy number one, due to all the negative publicity it has received in recent times. The use of salt is consistent across cultures and have long been considered a necessity, and before denouncing it completely, we must first analyze the types of salt and its impact on our health.

Processed Salt

Table salt is chemically produced and is an essential ingredient in most processed and pre-packaged foods, snacks and meat. It is stripped of many trace minerals that are vital for health and synthetic nutrients, usually in insufficient quantities, are added on which are usually unsuccessful in preventing deficiencies. After such chemical processing, the only elements left are sodium and chloride, leading to deficiencies in trace minerals. Hence, we are told to eliminate salt from our diet.

Iodised Salt

Natural sea salt lacks iodine, necessary for thyroid function, which is synthetically introduced in table salt. Iodisation of salt was adopted to eliminate Iodine Deficiency disease and related disorders, which is unnecessary for people consuming a balanced diet as iodine is widely available in eggs, legumes, dairy products etc. Hence, consumption of iodised salt leads to health issues like hypothyroidism, insomnia, abnormal heart rhythm & increased heart and blood pressure rate.

Elimination found Unhealthy

After years of promoting what may be unhealthy levels of sodium by compelling people to embark on a no-salt diet, science now informs us that a balance of minerals is mandatory and more advantageous than the complete elimination of sodium. 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.

Lowers Blood Pressure

Eating a balanced diet consisting of sodium, potassium and magnesium may result in the lowering of blood pressure and favourably affect health. Potassium reduces the risk of hypertension and balances out any detrimental effect of sodium intake, but a sodium-potassium imbalance leads to heart disease. Magnesium was also shown to reduce blood pressure significantly, although a vast majority of the population suffers from its deficiency.

Regulate Fluid Balance

Sodium, potassium and magnesium also allow nutrients and oxygen to travel to their necessary destinations within the body by regulating fluid balance in the body. Potassium and magnesium work collaboratively with sodium to regulate water balance and nerve and muscle impulses. Therefore, the consumption of sodium has to be balanced with that of potassium and magnesium but while there is high amount of sodium in our diets, few of us have a corresponding intake of the other elements.

Unrefined Salt

Therefore, we come to the conclusion that the salt required by our body is not table salt with high sodium-chloride and synthetic iodine contents, but unrefined salts containing trace minerals. Natural sea salt is taken from the ocean where it forms in concentrated amounts, with no added chemicals or unnecessary sodium, but with an abundance of essential minerals required by the body. The mineral content of sea salts differed depending on the harvesting location, but contained various amounts of trace minerals, and has amounts of calcium, potassium, magnesium, sulfur, zinc, and iron.