This substance has been taken a lot of abuse over the years… should we, shouldn’t we, how much, some, none?

Like so many things the issue here is mainly about purity and moderation. Salt had some important beneficial effects, the body needs a certain amount for various functions (water balance, blood pressure, skin, nervous system….).Table salt is a different animal to NATURAL sea or rock salt. Table salt had undergone a process of stripping, modifying and bleaching (not dissimilar to the assault that sugar goes through to refine it) to make it bright shiny white and looking perfect for sale and use. As you may already suspect, that process renders the salt to be a distant relation to the original product – this corruption means once again the body can not receive any benefit’s from it – it is actually detrimental, for instance, table salt has been linked to raising blood pressure but now we find that using natural sea or rock salt can actually BALANCE blood pressure!

Refined salt is lathered over fries and crisps and is in plentiful amounts in processed meals, pickles and sauces…..if that’s the bulk of your diet then obviously that’s not going to be good news. However using unrefined sea or rock salt in moderation is positively beneficial. Get yourself some “Himalayan” salt, it was formed a long time ago (250 million years!) before we started polluting our planet and is rich in minerals, you can buy it course (for grinding) or fine  (it’s also a very pretty pink colour which is cute!).

I’m a great believer in allowing your own senses (sense of taste and common sense) to guide you as to how much you may or may not want to flavour your food with, probably not more than a teaspoon a day….. different people need different amounts, which applies to most other things also. Salt is found naturally in food and some people may get all they need without any addition. Your taste buds may crave excess salt if you have been used to having a lot in processed food so just be aware of that and possibly have a weaning off period to wipe the slate clean so to speak. I am not suggesting that anyone should actively start using lots more salt on their food, what I am saying is….don’t be frightened of moderate use of natural salt, after all, it is part of our chemical makeup, in its natural state it’s not a foreigner to the body, it is another  fundamental.

It’s a repeating story isn’t it… we take something natural, mess about with it to make it ‘look’ or ‘ feel’ more attractive and the result is we turn it into a negative… again and again!