If you live in a northern region or near the ocean you have probably seen how rock salt and salt spray eats steel members and chrome coatings on automobiles. If you’ve ever had an open flesh wound and exposed it to salt, your senses will have told you how destructive it is. Salt paralyzes the intestinal villi and kills cells – would you knowingly bathe your delicate villi, your arteries, veins and capillaries with such a corrosive solution? Salt brine kills insects and “pickles” vegetables. Do you want to run a solution of that through your brain 24 hours a day? An ounce of salt, taken all at once, spells suicide.
You cannot become healthy if your sense of taste is befuddled by unnatural flavorings. Salt does not bring out the flavor of food; it overpowers your taste buds, deadening them to all sensation other than additional salt, causing unnatural cravings, overeating and beverage guzzling.
Salt bonds with water, and its toxicity necessitates extra fluid intake. The body’s dilution response causes the cells to become dehydrated, severely impairing health. Salt also throws off the blood’s electrolyte balance (e.g., the sodium to potassium ratio) and acidifies the body, eroding health and impeding healing. Most illness cannot be overcome when salt is part of the diet. The few salt eaters I’ve counseled did not heal their disease conditions until they followed my recommendation of giving up salt--even though their diets were otherwise nearly perfect.
Hypertension (high blood pressure), edema, cardiovascular disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, asthma, arthritis, rheumatism, Alzheimer’s disease, lupus, premenstrual syndrome, gout, cancer and a host of other disease conditions are linked to salt. Can the body handle a little bit of salt? Maybe, but not on a regular basis. Why risk ruining your precious health?
We do need mineral salts–no doubt about it. From where should we get our mineral salts? Plant foods is the natural answer. The liquids from fruits and vegetables contain all of the mineral salts we need, in safe, organic, usable form. For rich, satisfying flavors, obtain produce grown in soil generously mineralized with a rock powder amendment. If possible, grow your own produce, adding such mineral sources as rock powder, azamite, or kelp powder to your compost and soil.
Abstain from salt, clean out, eat whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic tender vegetables plus savory and sweet fruits. Your salt cravings will vanish and unseasoned foods will taste outrageously delicious.
Families should ban the salt cellar from the dinner table to improve health, a cancer expert has said.
Food should be seasoned only with pepper or herbs in order to reduce salt intakes to recommended levels, said Martin Wiseman, a medical and scientific advisor for the World Cancer Research Fund.
Adults should eat no more than six grams of salt a day but, on average, Britons actually consume more than nine.
Prof Wiseman said: "Because salt is added by food manufacturers, there is too much of it in our food before it even reaches our dinner table. By adding extra salt to a meal, you are only making things worse."
Salt is linked to higher blood pressure, which increases the risk of strokes, heart disease and stomach cancer.
Reducing salt intakes could save 23,450 lives a year in Britain.
THE salt cellar should be ditched from the family dinner table in a bid to improve health, a cancer expert said yesterday.
Diners should stick with pepper mills only and leave salt off their food, according to World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) medical and scientific adviser Professor Martin Wiseman.
Adults should eat no more than 6g of salt a day, but many people in the UK get through far more.
About 10 to 15% of salt intake is added at the dinner table or during cooking, the WCRF said.
Prof Wiseman said, “Basically we would say don’t use salt, try to use other things that will add flavour.
“Because salt is added by food manufacturers, there is too much of it in our food before it even reaches our dinner table.
“But by adding extra salt to a meal, you are only making things worse.”
The bulk of salt in the UK diet comes from processed foods such as bread but Prof Wiseman said consumers could take action themselves, by cutting the amount added both during cooking and to the food on their plates.
Pass the salt: Who hears that anymore? Salt's been nearly banished, and rightly so. Too much salt affects -- and not in a good way. But for some people, cutting back has a downside.
Take stock of the facts.
Too little salt -- iodized salt, that is -- is dangerous, too. It's the iodine in iodized salt that helps the body make hormone, which is critical to an infant's brain development.
A little salt is essential to good health. Healthy adults should consume salt and water to replace the amount lost daily through sweat and to achieve a that provides sufficient amounts of other essential nutrients.
The American Heart Association and NIH advise adults to get no more than 2,400 milligrams of sodium daily. That's about 1 teaspoon of salt. Just think how salty your favorite snacks taste. Eat too many salty foods (even soft drinks have sodium), and you easily go overboard.
Truth About Iodized Salt
Is the salt in your kitchen salt iodized? Most people don't know. "Most people buy just whatever one their hand grabs... and until about five years ago, it didn't really matter," says Glen Maberly, MBBS, MD, an endocrinologist and professor of international health in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
Yet getting too little iodine -- called iodine deficiency -- is a serious issue. Iodine is an essential mineral for the production of thyroid hormones. Too little iodine in a pregnant women's diet can affect the development of the fetus' brain and can cause cretinism, an irreversible form of physical and mental retardation. Iodine deficiency during infancy can also result in abnormal brain development and impaired intellectual development.
"The developing brain is the most sensitive organ. Iodine deficiency doesn't make people idiots, but it does make them less smart," says Maberly.
In the U.S., iodine deficiency is more common in women than men. It's also common in pregnant women and adolescents, he tells WebMD.
Iodine deficiency is thought to be rare in the U.S. It's considered a problem of third-world countries, but Maberly disagrees. "Iodine in the U.S. is borderline," he tells WebMD. "A pregnant woman may not be protected. Even if she eats a normal diet, her intake is probably inadequate. Only 70% of table salt is iodine-fortified."
Until nearly five years ago, Americans who got dairy, bread, and meat in their diets got plenty of iodine, he explains. Machines used in production were cleaned with an iodine disinfecting solution, so some iodine ended up in dairy, bread, meat products. That ended when companies quit using iodine disinfectant.
Iodized salt is rarely found in canned, frozen, or boxed food, says Maberly. French fries and other snack foods mostly contain regular salt -- not iodized salt.
In fact, Americans now get one-third less iodine than they once did, he notes.
Both newborns and toddlers are affected by iodine deficiency. A recent study showed lower IQ scores among children with mild iodine deficiency -- proof that the problem exists in developed countries, writes researcher Piedad Santiago-Fernandez, MD, an endocrinologist at the Complejo Hospitalario Carlos Haya in Malaga, Spain.
It's true, says Michael Karl, MD, an endocrinologist with the University of Miami School of Medicine. "You can certainly see even subtle changes in iodine can affect IQ," Karl tells WebMD. "Iodine is critical in the first years of life, extraordinarily important up to 3 or 5 years of age."
Children in financially stressed families are likely at highest risk. They rarely take multivitamins, he tells WebMD. "Iodine deficiency is not an epidemic yet, but it's serious enough that it should be watched."
Sea salt and most salt substitutes are not iodized. Unless are grown in iodine-rich soil, they will not contain iodine. Restaurants usually order salt in bulk, and often it's not iodized salt.
However, anything from the sea - such as seaweed (kelp) or fish -- can be a good source of iodine, says Maberly. A cup of cow's milk contains nearly 100 micrograms of iodine. Some breads contain iodine, but not all.
The normal requirement for iodine, according to World Health Organization standards: Adults need 150 micrograms a day. Women trying to get pregnant should increase their intake to 200 to 300 micrograms a day.
"We certainly should make pregnant and lactating women aware of this deficiency," says Karl. "I don't think most primary care doctors are aware of it."
Salt and Your Blood Pressure
The link between sodium and blood pressure has been rocky in recent years. Two decades ago, the landmark study known as Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) showed that a low-sodium, low-fat diet -- high in calcium, fruits, and vegetables -- had a direct impact on lowering blood pressure.
But a study last year challenged that dictum. It indicated that high-sodium intake is a marker for a poor-quality diet. It wasn't the sodium that affected blood pressure, but the lack of other important vitamins and minerals. That study was funded by the salt industry.
David McCarron, MD, a longtime paid consultant for the salt industry, presented these findings at the American Heart Association's 57th annual high blood pressure research conference last year.
However, a new report from the DASH research group shows -- once again -- that cutting sodium improved blood pressure, especially as people hit their 40s and 50s.
"In general, people who are older benefit more from lowering their sodium. Around age 40, 50, we begin to see a real difference," says Daniel W. Jones, MD, a hypertension expert with the University of Mississippi, and spokesman for the American Heart Association.
Salt and Your Blood Pressure continued...
Whether a person is salt-sensitive is at the heart of this issue. Everyone's response to sodium is different, Jones explains. Obese people and black people, seem to benefit more from sodium restriction than white people do, studies have shown.
But he says "that most people have some salt sensitivity," says Jones. "Some have more than others." Problem is, there is no easy test for determining salt sensitivity, he explains.
His personal philosophy: "Everyone hopes to become old, and as we get older, we become sensitive to salt. It makes sense to start early enough to affect your health. I think the direct health benefits from restricting sodium -- like the DASH study -- does call for restricting sodium," says Jones.
[144 – From ] Atkins, RC. Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution. David McKay Company, Inc., 1972.
1. Joosens, J.V., M.J. Hill, P. Elliot, et al. 1996. Dietary salt, nitrate and stomach cancer mortality in 24 countries: European Cancer Prevention (ECP) and the INTERSALT Cooperative Research Group. Int. J. Epidemiol. 3:494-504.
2. Obarzanek, E., F.M. Sacks, T.J. Moore, et al. 2000. Dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH)—sodium trial. Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension, May 17, New York, NY.
3. Itoh, R., and Y. Suyama. 1996. Sodium excretion in relation to calcium and hydroxyproline excretion in a healthy Japanese population. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 63 (5): 735-40.
4. Tuomilehto, J., P. Jousilahti, D. Rastenyte, et al. 2001. Urinary sodium excretion and cardiovascular mortality in Finland: a prospective study. Lancet 357 (9259): 848-51.
Salt, when you hear the word, what thoughts come to mind? “Too much salt is bad for me.” Or, “That reminds me, I’ve got to check my bid on Ebay for that Elvis salt & pepper shaker set that I simply must have.” Heck, maybe you even have one of these lines, “My grand daddy lived to the ripe ole’ age of ninety-six and he put salt on everything from pasta to pickled pigs feet.”
That pretty much sums up salt’s MO. Lot’s of people who think it’s bad and limit their exposure to it, and then there are others who dump it on everything. As for Dr. Fuhrman, he’s no fan of salt. In fact, he considers it to be one of . Here’s all seven:
- Butter
- Cheese
- Potato Chips and French Fries
- Doughnuts
- Salt
- Sausage, hot dogs
- Pickled, smoked or barbequed meat
Now not everyone shares Dr. Fuhrman’s disdain for salt. Rather, some “diet experts” basically endorse consumption of salty food. Take Dr. Atkins for example, he’d like people to use ! No, I'm not joking. Check it out over at :
Atkins rivals the creativity of the raw-food chefs of today in his uses for pork rinds. Pork rinds are chunks of pigs’ skin that are deep-fried, salted and artificially flavored. He recommends people use them to dip caviar. Or, perhaps for those who can't afford caviar, one can use fried pork rinds as a "substitute for toast, dinner rolls...You can use them as a pie crust... or even matzo ball soup (see our recipe on p. 190)."[144] Matzo balls made out of pork rinds?--now that is a diet revolution!
You’ve got to wonder about recommendations like this, especially since according to Dr. Fuhrman salt consumption has been linked to the development of stomach cancer and hypertension. Consider this excerpt from :
Any excess salt added to food, outside of what is contained in natural foods, is likely to increase your risk of developing disease. Salt consumption is linked to both stomach cancer and hypertension.1 For optimal health, I recommend that no salt at all be added to any food. The famous DASH study clearly indicates that Americans consume five to ten times as much as they need and that high sodium levels over the years has a predictable effect on raising blood pressure.2 Just because you don’t have high blood pressure now doesn’t mean that you won’t. In fact, you probably will have high blood pressure if you keep eating lots of salt over the years.
So, what happens when dangerous diet information is put out there? The masses eat it up. For example, from here’s Jimmy Moore’s take on salt:
Unless you are salt-sensitive (and it just so happens that I am!), there is no reason why you should watch your salt intake. An overwhelming majority have no reason to cut down on their salt intake. NONE! The fact that a minority of the population has sensitivity to salt should not make this a universal recommendation.
Luckily for Jimmy, he’s “salt-sensitive.” So he is limiting his exposure to it, but saying that the majority of people have no reason to avoid salt, well, that seems a little misguided because in addition to the hypertension and stomach cancer risk, Dr. Fuhrman associates salt intake with osteoporosis and heart attacks. More from Eat to Live:
Salt also pulls out calcium and other trace minerals in the urine when the excess is excreted, which is a contributory cause of osteoporosis.3 If that is not enough, high sodium intake is predictive of increased death from heart attacks. In a large prospective trial, recently published in the respected medical journal The Lancet, there was a frighteningly high correlation between sodium intake and all cause mortality in overweight men.4 The researchers concluded, “High sodium intake predicted mortality and risk of coronary heart disease, independent of other cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure. These results provide direct evidence of the harmful effects of high salt intake in the adult population.”
Now these dangers are clear, but arguably the biggest problem with salt is it shows up where you least expect it to. Sure, you can crack down on your habit of burying every meal in it, but, that’s only half the battle. Sally Kuzemchak of Prevention magazine explains that :
It's crammed into cheese slices and canned vegetables and sprinkled into cinnamon-raisin bagels and sandwich bread. You can consume a day's worth of the mineral with an order of mu shu pork with rice from your local Chinese restaurant, according to an analysis by the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest, in Washington, DC. As much as 80% of the sodium we get every day comes from these processed and prepared foods—not the salt shaker.
Sally also points to additional research highlighting the dangers of high-sodium diets:
There's also evidence to suggest that high-sodium diets may up the risk of gastric cancer. And in a small study from Colorado State University, a high-salt diet (more than 5,000 mg per day) worsened lung function in people with exercise-induced asthma, which occurs in as many as 90% of asthmatics. A low-salt diet improved it.
Information like this really makes you wonder how Dr. Atkins could endorse eating salty snacks like pork rinds. Now, the concern over people’s salt exposure is growing. Back in September Melanie Warner of The New York Times reported that . More from the report:
Specifically, the medical association, which had never before called for regulation of a food ingredient, asked the F.D.A. to revoke salt’s long-time status as a substance that is “generally recognized as safe,” a classification that warrants little oversight. Instead, the F.D.A. should regulate salt as a food additive, the medical group said.
If the recommendation were adopted, packaged-food companies would have to adhere to limits on allowable sodium levels for various categories of food, and speed up the search for an alternative to salt as a preservative and flavor enhancer.
