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New You New Years: Changing Your Salt
Why You Need More Salt
Salt is often touted at something we all need to reduce in our diets. High salt consumption is blamed for a whole host of diseases like hypertension and heart disease. But new research shows that this isn’t the case! Salt is really a healthy food for our diets and is essential for our bodies! Along with other trace minerals like magnesium, salt contains sodium and chloride which are necessary for our body.
Natural salt is not something new to our diets. Salt is mentioned in the bible nearly 50 times! In traditional cultures salt was used to preserve food and could even be used as currency. Salt is still as important now as it was then.
How Salt Works in our Body
Salt is a main component of blood plasma, amniotic fluid, lymphatic fluid and extra cellular fluid. It carries nutrients in and out of our cells. Salt is needed for firing the neurons in our brains and helps with creative thinking. It also helps maintain proper blood pressure and supports your adrenal glands (most adults are experiencing adrenal fatigue).
Salt is also important to help us digest our food. It helps in the production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. It also activates amylase which helps break down starches.
New evidence shows that salt may not even cause heart disease. There was actually data showing that a low salt diet increased your likelihood of dying. The study showed the least likely to die were people having high salt in their diets. Interesting!
Salt is needed for proper adrenal function
Adrenal Fatigue is so common these days. Feeling sluggish, not able to get out of bed in the mornings, dealing with insomnia, craving salt? You may have adrenal fatigue. One way to combat adrenal fatigue is to feed your adrenal glands with sea salt! Your body naturally wants to heal itself with a salty craving – so feed it wisely.
Dr. Mercola shares that you need to maintain proper salt to potassium ratio because the imbalance can lead to hypertension, cataracts, stomach ulcers, kidney stones, memory decline, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Potassium is also needed for proper blood pressure and a deficit could lead to hypertension as well. You also need potassium for electrolyte balance.
To help keep this salt to potassium ratio in balance, you can include these foods that contain high amounts of potassium in your diet: sweet potatoes, beans, tomatoes, yogurt, prunes, fish, winter squash and bananas.
Choose your salt wisely
Not all salt is created equal. Traditional table salt isn’t healthy due to its refined nature and is as unhealthy as processed sugar. Processed table salt contains man made chemicals and lacks the important minerals that natural sea salt and pink Himalayan salt provide.
Most Americans receive most of their salt through prepackaged, processed foods. Your salt intake should NOT be coming from these processed foods. When you cook and make your own meals and snacks, you can be guaranteed of your salt quality and other ingredients without the added preservatives and sugar which may be the cause of heart disease.
How much salt do you eat? What kind of salt do you like? Leave me a comment! Join the discussion.
Angela the writer of Grassfed Mama
This post is linked up at Wellness Wednesdays.
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I love salt. We started using celtic salt a long time ago and then last year I moved to pink Himalayan salt. I love the taste and also love knowing that our bodies are also getting the minerals we need.
Exactly! I love salt too. We were just using sea salt until my naturopath told us about pink Himalayan salt… I just feel like a fancy cook using it too, lol.
Mmm! Yes! I just had pastured eggs in salted butter WITH “Real Salt” and pepper. 😀 I love the taste of salt in home cooked food. I don’t like the taste of salt in processed foods or meals I eat at restaurants. It’s usually easy to taste the difference when you get used to the good stuff!!
Thanks for linking up with Wellness Wednesday – I’m featuring you in my post today. 🙂
Thank you Anjanette!
[…] You may be drinking too much water. There is a healthy balance of being dehydrated and being overly water logged. Listen to your body and drink for thirst. Lately I have been drinking homemade sugar free hot chocolate. I’ll always add a pinch of salt. […]