Unrefined Salt

Natural, unrefined, unprocessed salt

Refined Table Salt

What to buy?

How much to use?

Low Salt Diets

References

Natural, unrefined, unprocessed salt

Did you know that unrefined sea salt such as Celtic salt, mineral salt, Himalayan salt, and the natural salts found in saltpans are probably your best source of minerals? A quarter teaspoon (1.5 grams) per day will give you most of the minerals your body needs. Most of these minerals exist in micro-doses, in just the right proportion that you need for good health and longevity. The cost is negligible, and they have been proven in traditional diets around the world for thousands of years. Salt pans, mineral muds, and crystallised sea salt have always been valued by both humans and animals in the wild.

After sodium chloride (salt), the main mineral in unrefined sea salt is magnesium, which virtually everyone needs more of. Up to five percent of the weight of dry sea salt is a healthy and symbiotic mix of around 100 elements and over 80 additional compounds. This treasure trove of life-giving minerals includes barium, bismuth, boron, chromium, cobalt, molybdenum, rubidium, selenium, titanium, vanadium and zinc.

Salt is a natural antihistamine and antimicrobial. It also seems to reduce the level of mucus in the body. This makes it a first treatment for ailments such as:

Sore throat.

Sinus problems.

Hay fever.

Coughs and congested lungs.

and many other infections.

Refined Table Salt

The fine, white, free-flowing refined table salt that you buy in supermarkets bears no resemblance to sea salt or the mineral salts that naturally occur in saltpans or in the soil. Refined table salt is toxic and dangerous. It is so foreign to the human body that when it is absorbed it eventually causes oedema (water retention and swelling) and other degenerative diseases. Your blood pressure will rise, your hands and legs may swell, and a heavy load is placed on your kidneys.

Refined salt is manufactured in the same process as industrial sodium chloride. The original sea salt is treated with lime or caustic soda to remove the magnesium, which fetches a higher price when sold separately to industry. Most of the other valuable elements in the sea salt are also lost or extracted. The manufacturers then add an anti-caking agent such as aluminium silicate or sodium prussiate, bleaches and even white sugar.

Most people on a Standard American Diet (SAD) have a craving for salt. However, what is actually happening is their bodies are craving potassium and the other minerals in sea salt. Eating salty processed foods or adding refined table salt makes no difference to the hunger. This addictive property of refined salt is partly responsible for obesity. Ensure the salt in your pantry is unrefined sea salt or pink Himalayan salt, NOT refined, processed salt.

Contrary to popular belief, a high salt intake will actually conserve water in the body. A high intake of refined salt also makes you hungry. This is one reason why processed food manufacturers add lots of refined salt to their products - a deliberate strategy to make them addictive. (1, 2)

Prepared, packaged or processed foods contain excessive quantities of refined salt, especially pretzels, crisps, chips and salted nuts. Eliminating processed foods is the best way to cut down on refined sodium salt.

Either excessive or insufficient salt can cause headaches or migraines. Excess sodium salt can cause high blood pressure, heart and cardiovascular disease, stroke, oedema, leg and muscle cramps at night, asthma, and low energy. A feeling of faint or dizziness may be indicators of both a salt and water shortage in your body. Paradoxically, a shortage of salt leads to an increase in the amount of saliva in your mouth. Salt is a natural antihistamine, and people with allergies can try increasing their (unprocessed) salt intake.

What to buy?

The mineral content of sea salt varies widely depending upon what part of the world it came from. You would think all the oceans would have mixed up and averaged out by now, but that is not the case. One of the best is called Celtic salt. It varies in colour from off-white to grey to dark brown, is hygroscopic (attracts water) and feels slightly damp or sticky between the fingers.

Unfortunately, sea salts are becoming increasingly polluted, in line with the world's oceans. Therefore naturally-occurring rock and lake salts may be a better option.

Pink salts are normally mined rather than evaporated from salt water, so they are usually pure and stable. Natural pink salts are known for their essential trace minerals and their ability to regulate cellular fluid balance. Iron oxide and their abundant essential trace minerals cause their pink colour. Most of the trace minerals are in a colloidal form and inter-connected structure. This means that they are easy to absorb, and they provide a nutrient synergy that exponentially enhances their effect in the body.

The best-known pink salt is Himalayan salt. However, other pink salts come from Australia, Hawaii, Peru, Poland and Utah in the USA.

When you buy salt, look at the mineral analysis if it is available. I recently bought a packet of Lake Crystal Australian Lake Salt. There was no analysis on the packet, so I emailed the manufacturer asking for the mineral contents. I was shocked to discover that it is 99% sodium chloride - almost the same as a factory-refined salt. Try to buy coloured (not white) unrefined natural salts that have at least 5% other minerals.

Iodine. Unfortunately, unrefined unprocessed natural salt is not a good source of iodine. Iodine is added to refined salt, but so little that you could never get sufficient iodine for good health. Therefore iodine is one essential element that you will need to get elsewhere.

How much to use?

A healthy adult needs a minimum of a quarter teaspoon of mineral-rich salt per day. If you are exercising and sweating you need more. However, the average person on a modern Western diet eats about nine times more, in the form of one and a half teaspoons (nine grams) of refined salt per day. This massive intake of refined salt causes all sorts of problems, starting with high blood pressure and mineral deficiencies.

If you are eating organic food grown on rich living soils, you will get most of the minerals you need from that food. However, that is not the case for most people, especially those living in Australia with its ancient and barren soils. I usually add a pinch of Celtic salt to the food I have just prepared. When used this way there is little danger of overdosing, and your food tastes noticeably better with the natural rather than refined salt.

The required dietary intake from food for an adult is 2,300 mg of sodium per day and 4,700 mg of potassium. Potassium deficiency causes the retention of sodium. (3)

If you live in a hot environment, exercise heavily or drink a lot of water, you may need to add more unrefined salt to your food to replace that lost in your sweat and urine.

Low Salt Diets

A low salt diet is a mistake. Dr. Michael Alderman, head of epidemiology at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York and president of the American Society of Hypertension, has shown that people on low salt diets are less healthy and do not sleep well. He suggests that the obsession with low salt diets today is misdirected, and has come about because people are eating refined salt rather than natural sea salt. You should not restrict the amount of unprocessed sea salt in your diet that feels right.

Potassium is another mineral in which everyone on the Standard American Diet is deficient. Potassium and sodium work together. The standard medical advice for someone with a high level of sodium is a low-salt diet. This actually makes the symptoms worse. A low-salt diet makes the patient deficient in both sodium and potassium, with the potassium deficiency being disease-causing harmful.

References

1. Kento Kitada, Steffen Daub, Yahua Zhang, Janet D. Klein, Daisuke Nakano, Tetyana Pedchenko, Louise Lantier, Lauren M. LaRocque, Adriana Marton, Patrick Neubert, Agnes Schroder, Natalia Rakova, Jonathan Jantsch, Anna E. Dikalova, Sergey I. Dikalov, David G. Harrison, Dominik N. Muller, Akira Nishiyama, Manfred Rauh, Raymond C. Harris, Friedrich C. Luft, David H. Wassermann, Jeff M. Sands, Jens Titze1. High salt intake reprioritizes osmolyte and energy metabolism for body fluid conservation. J Clin Invest. 2017;127(5):1944-1959. doi:10.1172/JCI88532. Published 1 May 2017.

2. Natalia Rakova, Kento Kitada, Kathrin Lerchl, Anke Dahlmann, Anna Birukov, Steffen Daub, Christoph Kopp, Tetyana Pedchenko, Yahua Zhang, Luis Beck, Bernd Johannes, Adriana Marton, Dominik N. Muller, Manfred Rauh, Friedrich C. Luft, Jens Titze. Increased salt consumption induces body water conservation and decreases fluid intake. J Clin Invest. 2017;127(5):1932-1943. doi:10.1172/JCI88530. Published 1 May 2017.

3. Antonio Delgado-Almeida. Reinterpreting Sodium-Potassium Data in Salt-Sensitivity Hypertension: A Prospective Debate. 3 Jan 2005. Hypertension, Vol 45, No 2.