If you're consuming any processed salt, whether it's sea salt, rock
salt,
or something fancy with a name like raw Himalayan salt, you're eating
too much, and science is pretty clear that the habit will harm you.
Our culture shovels down salt in such huge quantities that we hardly
stop to question the habit, but think about it in terms of sea water.
Everyone knows that if you're stranded on a desert island, you can be
surrounded by an ocean of water that's useless because you'll die if
you try to drink it.
What do you die of when you drink it? Dehydration. Ponder this for a
moment. Salt has such a dehydrating
effect that you can drink a gallon of water laced with it and still die
of dehydration.
Our ancestors lived for millions of years without any processed salt in
their diet, and today our bodies clearly reject salt if we pay
attention. Put salt in an open wound and it will
burn painfully. Drink salt water and you'll throw it up. Put salt on a
slug, which lacks protective skin, and its body will "melt" from
dehydration because it uses the water in its body in an attempt to
dilute the burning substance.
Salt is such an effective killer that it was once used as a form of
suicide by the Chinese (1).
We Can Eat Too Much Salt, But We Need Saline
The body needs saline to function, but we must make a
distinction between extracted sodium chloride salt, which is an
irritant, toxic, and deadly if consumed in high enough doses, and the
sodium and other salts that occur naturally in whole plant foods.
The later is a nutrient important to every cell in the body, and eating
celery, lettuce, and other vegetables gives us the organic salts and
other minerals out bodies need in just the right amounts and
combinations.
Cells rely on a regulated ratio of extracellular sodium and
intracellular potassium, and when this is thrown out of whack, such as
by unusually high salt intake levels, it
seriously compromises bodily functions.
Luckily, the body is extremely efficient with its sodium use, and
there's little danger of running out. Your kidneys are responsible for
balancing the amount of sodium stored in your body for optimal health.
When your sodium levels are low your kidneys hold on to the sodium.
When sodium levels are high, your kidneys excrete the excess in urine.
There are plenty of expensive salts out there. Some is mined from the
dead sea or the Himalayas. Raw food gurus hawk the stuff to make a
quick buck and try to convince you it's better than run of the mill
salt, but the nutritional claims they make about it are false.
They'll tell you that you need extracted minerals to meet the
deficiencies of modern life.
We need many minerals, but we need them in
the quantities and the form in which they occur naturally in whole food
so they are a benefit and not a burden to our system. This is similar
to how we need vitamins, but they're harmful to
us when extracted in
pill form.
Too Much Salt Will
Damage Your Health
There are so many reasons not to eat extracted
salt that its overwhelming. For one, you only need to eat about 1 g per
kg of body weight to kill yourself with it (1).
For a 220 pound man (100 kg) that would be 100 grams, which is just shy
of four ounces. We average 9 grams a day in the U.S., so the average
American eats 1/10th of a lethal dosage for a large man every day.
But even at non-lethal doses, it's still not good for us.
Conservative health organizations like the American Medical Association
and the World Health Organization tell us we're harming ourselves by
eating so much.
Although 2,300
mg was long the standard sodium intake recommendation, the Centers For
Disease Control now considers 1,500 mg or less to be perfectly
adequate, and suggests that those with high blood pressure (a large
part of the population) and those over the age of 40 not exceed this
level (5).
Why are they making such fuss about this?
If you live in the United States you have a 90 percent lifetime
probability of having high blood pressure, which is a known risk factor
for a number of problems. Hypertension causes two-thirds of all strokes
(6)
When you regularly add salt to your diet, excess fluid starts to
accumulate in the circulatory system because the kidneys cannot excrete
all the salt, putting pressure on the walls of blood vessels, raising
blood pressure, and overworking the heart. Forcing the heart muscle to
pump against this unnaturally raised pressure for many years will cause
the heart muscle to enlarge, which often leads to heart failure.
That same elevated blood pressure is also the leading cause of stroke
(7).
Studies have shown that simply reducing salt intake by 50 percent
lowers your risk of stroke by 23 percent and heart disease by 17
percent (8), but there's no reason to believe that any salt intake
beyond that naturally found in plant foods is adequate.
We also know salt intake contributes to stomach
cancer (3), reduces bone density, and contributes to osteoporosis (4).
In most people the consumption of salt leads to water retention because
the body needs the water to render the salt inert until it can be
expelled. It's not unusual for a person to be carrying around five
pounds or more of extra water weight. You can learn more about water
retention here.
Too Much Salt: So What's The Difference?
Much is made of the superiority of sea salt, Celtic salt, and other
varieties, but what's actually the difference between them and table
salt? Not much from a chemical stand point.
Sea salt results when you evaporate sea water. It's usually not
processed to any great degree, and its trace mineral content depends on
what was in the water. The trace mineral content is insignificant
nutritionally, but does add flavor, color, and texture.
Table salt is mined from deposits of salt locked underground. It's more
heavily processed to eliminate the trace mineral content, but iodine
and an anti-clumping agent is usually added.
Sodium and chloride are the main components of both, and any trace
minerals that may be present do not add significantly to the
nutritional value (9).
Too Much Salt: Get
Free
Most people eat way too much salt in the wrong form, and there are many
benefits of giving it up, with no downsides .
Besides the fact that you're likely to live longer, your food will
taste better. People often pour on salt because they think food is
tasteless, but that's only because their taste buds have adjusted to
the huge amounts of salt and spices they eat.
Cut out salt, and inside two months you'll be noticing delicious new
complexities in your food.
Find great new recipes to eat on a raw food diet here.
Too Much Salt Sources:
(1) Elisabeth Elena Türk, Friedrich Schulz, Erwin Koops, Axel Gehl
and Michael Tsokos. Fatal hypernatremia after using salt as an
emetic—report of three autopsy cases. Legal Medicine 2005, 7, 47-50.
(2) Obarzanek, E., F.M. Sacks, T.J. Moore, et al. 2000. Dietary
approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) - sodium Trial. Papeper
presented at Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension,
May 17, New York, NY.
(3) Joossens, J.V., M.J. Hill, P. Elliot, et al. 1996. Dietary salt,
nitrate and stomach cancer mortality in 24 countries: European Cancer
Prevention (ECP) and the INTERSALT Cooperative Research Group. int. J.
Epidemiol. 3:494-504
(4) Itoh, R. and Y Suyama. 1996. Sodium excretion in relation t calcium
and hydroxyproline excretion in a healthy Japanese population. Am. J.
Clin. Nutr. 63(5): 753-40.
(5) Most Americans Should Consume Less Sodium (1,500 mg/Day or Less).
Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Aug. 2010.
Http://www.cdc.gov/features/sodium
(6) Luke, R.G., President's address: salt-too much of a good thing?
Trans Am Clin Climatol Assoc, 2007. 118: p. 1-22.
(7) Internet Stroke Center: Intracerebral Hemorrhage.
(8) Strazzullo, P., et al., Salt intake, stroke, and cardiovascular
disease: meta-analysis of prospective studies. Bmj, 2009. 339: p. b4567.
(9) Zeratsky, Katherine, R.D., L.D. "Is sea salt better for your health
than table salt?" The Mayo Clinic.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sea-salt/AN01142
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There are so many reasons not to eat extracted
salt that its overwhelming. For one, you only need to eat about 1 g per
kg of body weight to kill yourself with it (1).
