The Salt of the Earth: Its Probably Not What’s on your table.

Recently, a lot of information has been brought to my attention about the importance of getting good quality salt in your diet. I imagine you’re shaking your head; we always hear that we’re supposed to avoid salt.
It appears salt has gotten a bad rap. Like all things your body needs to survive, too much – or the wrong type – can be a problem. Recent research associates salt with strokes, calcium deficiency and osteoporosis, fluid retention, weight gain, stomach ulcers and stomach cancer. But all this research points to refined, processed, chemically altered, common table salt, or refined sea salt – but not unaltered holistic, mineral-rich crystal salt.
Essentially, every cell in the human body depends on the presence of sodium. We find sodium diffused throughout the fluid between the cells. And each cell is like a small ocean containing salty water. Inside the cells we find primary potassium. These two minerals – sodium and potassium – need to be in constant, dynamic balance so the cells can exchange incoming energy with outgoing, depleted fuel.

Sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) are two of the primary electrolytes. The others are calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), chloride (Cl-), phosphate (PO43-) and hydrogen carbonate (HCO3-), plus other significant mineral salts. Electrolytes regulate the hydration of the body, blood pH, blood pressure and are crucial for nerve and muscle function. The muscle tissue and neurons are considered electric tissues, able to conduct electricity. It’s the electrolyte activity in the body that activates the muscles to contract.

Without sufficient levels of the key electrolytes, muscle weakness or severe muscle contractions may occur. Electrolyte balance is normally maintained by eating salt or drinking electrolyte-containing substances.

Water and salt regulate every metabolic function of the body, including functions of solid matter itself. Your body is constantly monitoring these minerals and working to maintain their delicate balance. Without salt, it is said, we couldn’t exist for a moment.

Not all Salt is the Same

There is a tremendous difference between table salt and crystal salt. In its natural state, salt consists primarily of the elements sodium and chloride, but it also contains up to 82 other naturally occurring minerals.

Manufacturers of table salt view these important trace elements as impurities. So, since the advent of industrial development, most of the salt we use has been stripped of its inherent mineral content through a process that “chemically cleanses” and reduces it to only its most fundamental elements, sodium and chloride.

This table salt is not a natural element and is considered poison to the body. Additionally, additives increase the salt’s aggressive profile. As common as iodized salt is to our tables, so are the number of diseases attributed to it. The body recognizes this chemically enriched sodium chloride as toxic, and tries to get rid of it as quickly as possible. This causes a constant overburden on our excretive organs.

Other processed foods that we eat aggravate this situation. In almost every refined product, salt is used as part of the preservation process. So, in today’s normal diet, the body receives more salt than it can get rid of.

The body now ties to isolate the overdose of salt. In this process, water molecules surround the sodium chloride in order to neutralize it by ionizing it into sodium and chloride. For this process, water is extracted from our cells; the body has to sacrifice its most precious cell water in order to neutralize our salt intake. The dehydrated body cells die.

Natural, unrefined salt crystals – with all of their important trace elements – behave differently in the body. Here are just a few of the claimed benefits of pure crystal salt,
when consumed properly:

• Regulates your blood pressure, in conjunction with water
• Extracts excess acidity from your body’s cells, particularly the brain cells
• Balances the sugar levels in the blood
• Generates hydroelectric energy in your body’s cells
• Enhances adsorption of nutrients through the intestinal tract
• Clears mucous plugs and sticky phlegm in the lungs, particularly in those afflicted
with asthma and cystic fibrosis
• Clears up congestion of the sinuses
• Provides your body with a strong natural antihistamine
• Regulates sleep
• Prevents gout
• Helps the kidney to pass excess acidity into the urine
• Is a strong anti-stress element for the body
• Helps maintain muscle tone and strength
• Strengthens bone structure (Osteoporosis, in many ways, is a result of salt and
water shortage in the body)
• Prevents muscle cramps

The information on salt is interesting and worth digging into further. When I first heard this information, I shook my head too, because it never ceases to amaze me how much conflicting information there is out there when it comes to health and proper nutrition. In my research on salt, I found this quote. Be well.
“.. all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and , therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And, when we go back to the sea. ..we are going back to whence we came.” -John F. Kennedy
By: Janee Kuta-Illiano Reprinted with permission