Take It With a Grain of Salt
I am quite literally a take everything with a grain of salt kind of girl. We salt it all. What is life without really good quality salt? Fatigue, cramping, weakness, low blood pressure, hormone upset, and more imbalances throughout the body. Although, we are led to believe otherwise.
A great article titled “The History of the Salt Wars” from the American Journal of Medicine has some well written information on how prescribed low sodium diets became a popular band aid for hypertension, or high blood pressure, in the early 1900’s. Uncontrolled experiments continued to “prove” that lowering sodium lowered blood pressure, and so the word spread.
Around the same time as the widespread thoughts of salt being an enemy, we morphed salt. The changes World War One brought had left many with depleted nutrition. Adding iodine to salt gave a quick response to the depletion issues among many. Through the process of iodized salt becoming a fix, the salt itself became a depleted shaker on the table. The salt was now stripped of much needed minerals to become pure white granules, iodized, and became over 90% sodium chloride. Although your body needs sodium chloride, it also needs the naturally occurring minerals in salt to balance and properly use the sodium chloride.
The beauty of salt goes beyond the way it brings out flavor in foods. Salt in true form (key words) assists your body in absorbing nutrients, maintaining healthy amounts of electrolytes, bringing you energy, cellular hydration, and using minerals including the very important potassium which maintains a healthy amount of blood volume. Keeping with the mindset that we are one system, all of these benefits take pressure off of organs that try to keep equilibrium when imbalances occur. Kidneys are one of the organs that can take a hit when long term depletion of electrolytes and minerals are present. In acute situations with hypertension, lowering or removing specific nutrients may be necessary temporarily. Although when a suggestion is made to us to begin a low sodium lifelong regime, we must ask why. If balance is the end goal for us, then we need to look at the quality of our lifestyle and nutrition. What is missing here? Are there underlying root causes that are elevating blood volume?
We have discussed that not all salts are created equal. So what salts do we love? The ever popular Redmond Real Salt is always a win for us. It is a quality salt, in true form, and we have happily used Redmond for the past decade. Last year we came across a salt product for our livestock, crops, and soil health made by Sea-90 Ocean Minerals. Over the past 10 months we noticed a positive change in the health of all. We also learned they have a sister company for human consumption, Baja Gold Salt Co. The micronutrient levels actually exceed Redmond’s, though both are great options. Needless to say, we are big fans. I began using Baja Gold salt therapeutically to assist with my personal rebalancing 8 weeks ago, and with great success. I will expand further on these successes as they continue.
Finding a source of real salt that works for you and your health is the goal here. Demonizing a major nutrient is a red flag, and we must be advocates for ourselves. The history of salt and its value is an intriguing topic. If it also interests you, I suggest the book Salt, World History by Mark Kurlansky. Stay salty my friends.
