The Shake Down on Salt
Salt is essential for our good health, but what is it, really? Sometimes the two terms, "salt" and "sodium" are used interchangeably, but technically this is not correct. "Salt" is sodium chloride. By weight, it is 40% sodium and 60% chloride. Sodium is an essential nutrient, a mineral that the body cannot manufacture itself but which is required for life itself and good health. Sodium is easily absorbed and is active in the absorption of other nutrients in the small intestine. Sodium is the major extra cellular electrolyte responsible for regulating water balance, pH, and osmotic pressure. It is important in nerve conduction.
Chloride, too, is essential to good health. It preserves acid-base balance in the body, aids potassium absorption, supplies the essence of digestive stomach acid, and enhances the ability of the blood to carry carbon dioxide from respiring tissues to the lungs.
Salt for human consumption is produced in different forms: unrefined salt (such as sea salt), refined salt (table salt), and iodized salt. It is normally obtained from sea water or rock deposits. Table salts are mined from the earth with heavy machinery, and then iodized, bleached, and diluted with anti-caking agents. As many as 82 trace minerals and essential macronutrients found in natural sea salt are lost in the table salt refining process.
Anticaking agents are present in many commercial table salts as well as dried milk, dried eggs, food mixes, sugar and flour. Their role is to prevent the salt from mixing with water so it won't clump in the box or in a saltshaker. Anticaking agents function either by adsorbing excess moisture or by coating particles and making them water repellent. Unfortunately, anticaking agents also prevent salt from mixing with water in the human body.
The ocean contains the precious minerals our body requires for optimum function, including iodine. Genuinely healthful sea salt is composed of minerals from the ocean waters that have been transformed by microorganisms, algae and plants into organic nutrients; these in turn are bioavailable to animals of the sea and land.
Trace elements, found in minute quantities in seawater and therefore in natural unrefined sea salt, all work together to assure and maintain proper function of the body's systems. Stated another way, if any of our internal oceans are shortchanged of trace nutrients, the body will lack the triggering bio-electrical impulses and the mineral building blocks necessary to function at full efficiency or to renew its systems properly.
Unrefined Sea Salts:
- Are a prime condiment that stimulates salivation, and helps to restore good digestion. They greatly enhance the flavors of food.
- Help to balance and replenishes all of the body's electrolytes.
- Supply all 82 vital trace minerals to promote optimum biological function and cellular maintenance.
- Help balance alkaline/acid levels in the body.
- Properly stored, keep virtually indefinitely.
Meadowsweet Herbs has just brought in a new line of exceptional sea salt. Natural Celtic Sea Salts are a "moist" unrefined sea salt usually found on the coastal areas of France. Its light grey, almost light purple color comes from the clay found in the salt flats. The salt is collected by hand using traditional Celtic methods. Grey Salt has gained great fame in the mainstream culinary world in the last few years and is considered by many to be the best quality salt available. This natural product is obtained from traditional organic salt farmers, under the highest quality controls. The method used for gathering them follows a time-honored 2,000 year-old Celtic tradition, supported and authenticated by modern quality and purity control establishments.
Look for bath salts (great for detoxing!), edible salts (use them in your neti pot, too!), salt grinders and even pocket sized salt grinders you can carry with you to salt your food at restaurants. We love Celtic Sea Salts -- you can really taste and feel the difference. |
