Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a danger sign for your health, and it is likely that you will be told by your doctor to go on a salt-free or low-salt diet indefinitely.
Food lacking salt does not taste good.
There is some rumbling now in medical circles about the efficacy of limiting salt and now it is being said that only a very small group of hypertensive persons need to limit their salt intake.
If I were in your situation, I would take a serious look at the facts about the salt you are consuming.
First, there are several different kinds of salt: refined salt (such as Morton’s salt); sea salt- which you may find in a health food store – thinking it is unrefined sea salt – which it is not; unrefined mined salt (some are good, some are contaminated by heavy metals); and unrefined ocean sea salt (such as Celtic Sea Salt) which is what I use.
There is a big difference in cost – Morton’s is about a dollar a pound, and the Celtic Sea Salt costs much more. For something that is so important for your health, you should not quibble about the cost, since you probably won’t use much more than 2 pounds a year.
(For me there is no place more healing than the ocean. Submerging your whole body in the ocean seems to get everything back into balance. Pains seem to decrease, and colds and sore throats seem to get better.)
However, the salt that is eaten by most people and used in most public eating places is refined table salt. It starts out as a dirty looking sludge. It is refined and washed, and all the minerals and contaminants and moisture in it are removed by many processes, and it has potassium iodide added to it ( supposedly to prevent goiters), and then sugar is added to it to stabilize the iodine and to prevent caking, and aluminum silicate is added.
The finished product consists of a white, free-flowing salt consisting of 99.9% sodium chloride. It is only in the past 100 years that salt has been so refined.
Is it possible that when an essential whole food, such as unrefined salt, is stripped of most of its minerals, it may become a toxin to the body, which can cause high blood pressure?
The unrefined ocean sea salt contains 98% sodium chloride and up to 2% other minerals such as magnesium, calcium, potassium, manganese, phosphorus, and iodine salts and many others up to 100 minerals including 80 trace minerals. The composition of crystal ocean salt is so complicated that no laboratory in the world can produce it from its basic 80 chemicals. It is perfectly balanced to sustain the ocean and everything that lives in it.
Salt is something we do not give much thought to. When you “Google” salt you will be amazed at how much information is available about it, and about its importance in the history of the world since the earliest of times.
Salt is essential to life.
Throughout history, salt has been a cornerstone of economies. Wars have been fought over salt supplies. It was common for salt to be taxed to support wars.
Greek slave traders often bartered salt for slaves – thus the saying “he’s not worth his salt.” Salt taxes paid for half of the cost of the Erie Canal. Thousands of Napoleon’s troops died during the French retreat from Moscow due to a salt deficiency which was shown by wounds not healing and lowered resistance to disease.
