Salt, like fat, is another substance that is the target of widespread demonization by the medical community. Like fat, there are good and bad forms of salt. When most people think of salt, they immediately think of the white, refined crystalline substance known as table salt, which is 97% sodium chloride, with the remaining percentage of its makeup coming from chemicals such as moisture absorbents and anti-caking agents. Conventional salt is not the same thing as natural, unrefined salts like Celtic sea salt, and especially Himalayan pink salt. This salt is the purest, most uncontaminated salt on earth and necessary for the proper functioning of the body in so many ways. Contrary to popular belief, salt is an absolutely essential part of the human diet. Without it, you die. Salt is responsible for the normal function of so many bodily processes, such as promoting a healthy pH balance in your cells, regulating water content throughout the body, regulating your sleep, nerve to muscle transmission, and the regulation of blood pressure among so many other things. The problem with the American diet, which is high in processed foods containing high levels of sodium from added salt, is that it's also high in sugar, and sugar is more responsible for high blood pressure than anything else, since the body retains sodium when insulin levels are high. When a person eliminates sugar from their diet, insulin levels plummet and the kidneys readily excrete any excess sodium from the body, immediately lowering blood pressure. So it's funny that salt is often blamed as being the culprit in causing high blood pressure, when in reality it is sugar that contributes most to this ailment which millions of people are needlessly prescribed drugs for. It would seem that the number one culprit for just about every major health ailment that afflicts the most people, from cancer to Type II diabetes to heart disease, is sugar.
I use Himalayan pink salt but only because it's pink. Salt is vital for health but it can also be like a poison.
No it can't... unless you eat an ungodly amount of it or are eating the refined kind which is devoid of nutritional value. Refined sugar and fructose is more of a poison than salt will ever be.
But salt has been found to not be the root cause of the hypertension, but rather how the body retains salt so that it accumulates, and the retention and accumulation of sodium is directly correlated with elevated insulin levels. People on low carb diets are recommended to supplement with salt since the lowering of insulin levels allows sodium to be readily excreted from the body via the kidneys, which causes blood pressure to drop naturally, without diuretics or blood pressure medicines. The reality is that sugar -- not salt -- causes hypertension, but instead the blame gets put on salt, when salt is an essential mineral the body needs, unlike sugar, which truly is a poison and has absolutely no health benefits. And again, there is a big difference between the salt you get from eating processed foods, and naturally-occurring, unrefined sea salts which ones adds to a diet consisting of whole foods.
I started using Himalayan pink salt a few months ago and I'll never switch back to regular ol table salt. It makes food taste so much better. I read a while back that having a good salt to potassium ratio is so much more important than regulating your salt intake, although I can't remember how the two work together.
About 15 years ago I was hospitalized with Menieres. My electrolyte levels were way too low. So I was connected to an intravenous machine for four days that slowly pumped a saline solution into my bloodstream. Strange they should do that if salt is such poisonous stuff. The next time I had it, the doctor noticed that I had rather low blood pressure and thought I should eat something salty. I later consulted the book Lets Eat Right Fit by Adelle Davis. Guess what, she recommends consuming more salt as a way of dealing with Menieres. Since I have bumped up my salt intake, the only attacks of Menieres have not lasted more than one night. The last lot of salt I bought for home was a 25kg bag of unprocessed salt crystals for $25 from a farm supplies shop. I think it is used on farms for when they want to preserve a sheepskin or cow hide. For fine salt for sprinkling on food, now and then I grind up a batch in the coffee grinder.Afterwards I wipe put with greasy bit of kitchen paper. For grease either use coconut oil or dripping . This is to prevent rust. A note about Adelle Davis. Although she got somethings wrong in retrospect, she was nevertheless intellectually honest and a trailblazer explaining nutrition to the masses. In many areas she was ahead of her time. She was hated by big food processing companies for daring to suggest that fresh food was more healthy than processed food. An interesting link, http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/facts-about-salt/3305370 You can either listen to the MP3 file or read the transcript.
