When organic, unrefined salt is lacking in your diet, weakness and sickness follow. The problem with salt is not the salt itself but the condition of the salt we eat. Our regular table salt no longer has anything in common with the original crystal salt. Salt nowadays is mainly sodium chloride and not salt. With the advent of industrial development, our natural salt was ‘chemically cleaned’ and reduced only to sodium and chloride.
Major producing companies dry their salt in huge kilns with temperatures reaching 1200 degrees F, changing the salt’s chemical structure, which in turn adversely affects the human body. The common table salt we use for cooking has only 2 or 3 chemical elements. The seawater salt has 84 chemical elements. For our body to be healthy we need all those elements. When we use the common salt, we are in deficit of 81 elements, which means we are somehow contributing to becoming weaker, imbalanced and more susceptible to diseases. Sea salt is as important to health as those eight glasses of water we should drink each day! For those striving toward a healthy diet, natural sea salt is a nourishing whole food.
Salt is a vital substance for the survival of all living creatures.
Sea salt has natural healing properties. It carries out numerous vital functions in the body. It helps the body replace lost electrolytes and balance pH levels. It regulates muscle contraction, especially that of the heart, and stimulates the liver and the production of digestive acids. The iodine in sea salt is paramount for thyroid gland function. Salt is most effective in stabilizing irregular heartbeats and contrary to the misconception that it causes high blood pressure, it is actually essential for the regulation of blood pressure – in conjunction with water – and the proportions are critical.
Salt is vital for balancing the sugar levels in the blood; a needed element in diabetes, for the absorption of food particles through the intestinal tract, for the clearance of the lungs of mucus plugs and sticky phlegm, particularly in asthma and cystic fibrosis, for clearing up catarrh and congestion of the sinuses, for prevention of muscle cramps, for the prevention of gout and gouty arthritis, for preventing varicose veins and spider veins on the legs and thighs. And the list goes on and on.
Alzheimer’s Disease and Salt Intake
The brain is 85 percent water and it is encased in a salty lake. Cerebral spinal fluid is a very salty environment and in order to make it salty, salt is pumped into this environment constantly. Salt is responsible for taking acid out of the brain cells. There are nine trillion brain and nerve cells that constantly chatter to one another. They use up energy and there is toxic waste. There is acidity involved in the toxic waste. Salt goes into the cell and pushes the acid out. And then this acid is taken out of the system by a mechanism of pumping systems and taken to the kidneys and flushed out. If we are short of (unrefined) salt and the toxic waste builds up in the cell environment of the brain, then hydrogen iron acidity, which lowers the pH making it more acidic, will eat away into the brain cell mechanism.
Drink more water, take more salt.
Dr. Batmanghelidj, noted authority and author of ‘Water: Rx for a Healthier Pain-Free Life’, says that we need ¼ tsp. of sea salt for every quart of water we drink, and that many ‘disease conditions’ can be prevented and cured by balancing one’s daily water and salt intake. He suggests using a good sea salt with food and make sure to take potassium daily (banana, orange juice, etc.)
Common Table Salt: White Poison
Refined and processed table salt should be eliminated from every health-conscious kitchen for the following reasons:
- It retains fluids. One ounce (28.35 grams) of table salt retains up to one pound (0.45 kilograms) of water. Fluid retention is not only uncomfortable, it tires the heart.
- It acidifies the blood, which offers an open invitation to heart problems, hypertension, liver illnesses, neuralgia, rheumatism and gastric ulcers.
- It damages and depletes enzymes, upsets the sodium/potassium balance, creates an acidic stomach and inhibits digestion.
- It overstimulates the nervous system by activating the adrenal glands.
- It increases perspiration and decreases muscle contractility-including the muscles of the heart.
- It creates arrythmia from its abnormal impact on nerves and helps harden arteries and other tissues. It also fosters calcium and fatty deposits on the artery walls.
- North Americans consume two to three times more salt than they should. Refined (common table salt) salt puts a huge burden on the kidneys, weakening them until they can no longer function.
Still the body needs minerals that are found in unrefined salt. Deficiencies, can lead to kidney infections, respiratory aliments and healing retardation. In its natural state, salt has at least 100 other minerals and trace elements which lead to a healthy diet. It stabilizes blood pressure. A deficiency of total salt minerals makes the body fight harder to survive and makes blood pressure go up. By bathing and rubbing skin with its granules, natural sea salt helps the skin to function as an elimination organ.
Benefits of Sea Salt – Not a New Concept
Both sea salt and rock salt were well-known to the ancient Greeks who noted that eating salty food affected basic body functions such as digestion and excretion (urine and stools). This led to salt being used medically. Also, the healing methods of Hippocrates (460 BC) especially made frequent use of salt. Greek medicine, 2000 years ago, had already discovered topical use of salt for skin lesions, drinking salty or mineralized waters for digestive troubles and inhaling salt for respiratory diseases!