Day 207

Thoughts: Salt.

Whats the deal with salt? Good, bad, healthy, unhealthy?

Yes salt is on The Earth Diet and I use it. It is naturally created on the Earth and can be a healthy addition to your diet.

Salt is essential for life -- you cannot live without it. However, most people simply don't realize that there are enormous differences between the standard, refined table and cooking salt most of you are accustomed to using and natural health-promoting salt.

These differences can have a major impact on your staying healthy.

If you want your body to function properly, you need holistic salt complete with all-natural elements. Today's common table salt has nothing in common with natural salt.

Your table salt is actually 97.5% sodium chloride and 2.5% chemicals such as moisture absorbents, and iodine. Dried at over 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, the excessive heat alters the natural chemical structure of the salt.

For every gram of sodium chloride that your body cannot get rid of, your body uses 23 times the amount of cell water to neutralize the salt. Eating common table salt causes excess fluid in your body tissue, which can contribute to:

* Unsightly cellulite
* Rheumatism, arthritis and gout
* Kidney and gall bladder stones

So Why Are Many People Still Using Table Salt?

Well over 90% of the world's salt is being used directly for industrial purposes that require pure sodium chloride. The remaining percentage is used for preserving processes and ends up on your kitchen table.

With the use of rigorous advertising, the salt industry is successful in convincing you there are actually health advantages to adding potentially toxic iodine and fluoride to salt. In addition, your table salt very often contains potentially dangerous preservatives. Calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, and aluminum hydroxide are often added to improve the ability of table salt to pour. Aluminum is a light alloy that deposits into your brain -- a potential cause of Alzheimer's disease.

The Typical Table And Cooking Salt In Your Grocery Store Has Been "Chemically Cleaned". What remains after typical salt is "chemically cleaned" is sodium chloride - an unnatural chemical form of salt that your body recognizes as something completely foreign. This form of salt is in almost every preserved product that you eat. Therefore, when you add more salt to your already salted food, your body receives more salt than it can dispose of.

Salt is a mineral that is composed primarily of sodium chloride. It is essential for animal life in small quantities, but is harmful to animals and plants in excess. Salt flavor is one of the basic tastes, making salt one of the oldest, most ubiquitous food seasonings. Salting is an important method of food preservation.

Sodium is one of the primary electrolytes in the body. All four cationic electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium) are available in unrefined salt, as are other vital minerals needed for optimal bodily function. Too much or too little salt in the diet can lead to muscle cramps, dizziness, or electrolyte disturbance, which can cause neurological problems, or be fatal. Higher salt intake is associated with higher rates of stroke and cardiovascular disease.

Many people are unaware that common table salt is actually full of many forms of chemicals and even sugar! Salt, while necessary for life as we know it, can be dangerous if taken in this chemical form.

Commonly sold table salt is composed of 97.5% sodium chloride and 2.5% chemicals like iodine and absorbents, and sugar. Common salt is also dried at more than 1,200° Fahrenheit, a process which zaps many of the natural chemical structures of naturally-occuring salt.

The table and cooking salt found in most homes, restaurants, and all processed foods, is empty of any nutritional value. It is lacking in the precious trace minerals that make salt good for us. After processing, salt is basically sodium chloride, an unnatural chemical type of salt that our body actually sees as a foreign toxic invader!

When we ingest this type of salt, our body cannot dispose of it in a natural, healthy way. This can lead to inflammation of the tissues, water retention and high blood pressure over time.

Furthermore, processed salt crystals are also energetically dead, as their crystals are completely isolated from one another. In order for our body to metabolize chemical table salt, it must waste tremendous amounts of energy to try to keep the body at its optimum fluid balance. This creates an unnecessary burdening of the elimination systems in the body. Water is also removed from other cells in the system in an attempt to neutralize the unnatural sodium chloride.

Get Salt as Nature Intended It - Pure Himalayan Crystal Salt



Himalayan salt is the purest salt is a marketing term for rock salt from Pakistan. A test shows they detected a total of 10 different minerals: sodium and chloride (98%) and other minerals. Himalayan crystal salt is far superior to traditional iodized salt which is extremely toxic. Himalayan salt is millions of years old. It is a pure form of salt, untouched by many of the toxins and pollutants that pervade other forms of ocean salt.

Known in the Himalayas as “white gold,” Himalayan Crystal Salt contains the same 84 natural minerals and elements found in the human body. This crystal form of salt has also been maturing over the past 250 million years under intense tectonic pressure, creating an environment of zero exposure to toxins and impurities.

What is more, this salt’s unique cellular structure allows it to store vibrational energy. Its minerals exist in a colloidal form, meaning that they are tiny enough for our cells to easily absorb them.

Salts to avoid:

Table salt
Table salt is refined salt, which contains about 97% to 99% sodium chloride. In France, 35% of sold table salt contains either sodium fluoride or.

The finely ground pure white salt that you commonly see in grocery stores and restaurants is highly refined and processed. As such, it contains chemical toxins, free radicals, and denatured nutrients that cause cell damage and malfunction. Artery problems are just one example of what can result. While refined table salt is definitely something you should avoid, this alone isn’t going to eliminate the risk factors of high blood pressure and heart disease.

Iodized salt
Iodised salt (also spelled iodized salt) is table salt mixed with a minute amount of various iodine-containing salts. The ingestion of iodide prevents iodine deficiency. Worldwide, iodine deficiency affects about two billion people and is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation.



Rock salt
Halite is the mineral form of sodium chloride, NaCl, commonly known as rock salt. Halite forms isometric crystals. The valuable elements found in rock salt are useless because your body cannot absorb it.

Kosher salt
Kosher salt usually referred to as kosher salt in the US, is a term that describes one of the most commonly used varieties of edible salt in commercial kitchens today. Nutritionally speaking, kosher salt is no different than table salt, although it does not provide iodine.

Kosher salt has a much larger grain size than some common table salt. Like common table salt, kosher salt consists of the chemical compound sodium chloride.

The purest salt is Himalayan salt and another great alternative is unrefined sea salt.

Unrefined Sea Salt
While avoiding refined table salt is a great idea, avoiding salt all together isn’t. We need salt to support immunity, proper cell pH balance, blood sugar regulation, stress tolerance, digestion, bone development, muscle health, allergy regulation, and electrolyte balance. Unrefined sea salt provides this support without the risks linked to refined table salt. It’s also a great source of more than 50 other minerals and trace elements that are essential for good health.

Sea salt is naturally gray in color and has larger granules than table salt. If you find sea salt that is pure white, it has most likely been bleached which is an indication that you should avoid it. An excellent brand of sea salt, which is also the brand I use, is Celtic Sea Salt. Celtic sea salt: Celtic Sea Salt is a brand of sea salt. Sea salt is obtained by the evaporation of seawater and is healthy as long as it is not processed. Unrefined ground sea salt would be the best alternative to commercial table salt.



People around the world now consume large amounts of salt. However, from centuries ago to the present day, there are still many countries that have never known what salt is, and whose people are still healthy and happy.

The Japanese are known to be the world's highest consumers of table salt (inorganic salt - sodium chloride). A Japanese farmer who lives to age 60 eats approximately 2 ounces of salt every day and filters up to 2,737.5 pounds or 1.36 tons of salt through his kidneys in his lifetime! This heavy salt intake hastens premature death!
Americans are not far behind the Japanese in the consumption of salt. Not only do Americans add plenty of salt to their foods, they also eat large amounts of ham, bacon, hot dogs, luncheon meats, corned beef, potato chips, salted nuts and many other foods with high concentrations of salt. No wonder heart disease is the No. 1 killer in America! Even people in their 30s and 40s suffer from high blood pressure, kidney trouble, arthritis and—the greatest of all killers—arteriosclerosis, the clogging of the arteries, veins and blood vessels!

Weight Loss Tip from Fitness Model and raw vegan chef Koya Webb: Salt makes you retain water in your cells. By decreasing your salt intake, you will loose water weight, and over a few days of cutting your salt intake in half you can loose about 5-10 lbs of water weight. The RDA (recommended daily allowance) of salt is 1 teaspoon. Put aside 1/4 or a 1/2 teaspoon of salt to use on your meals for today. You don't have to use it all, but don't use more. As a rule, don't eat anything with salt added already, like chips, crackers, or processed food. One bag of even raw crackers can contain more than the RDA.

Salt tip from Jinjee the creator of The Garden Diet and the 21 Day Cleanse I am on! "Your taste for salt is acquired, so it's reversible. To unlearn this salty savoring, decrease your use of salt gradually and your taste buds will adjust. Most people find that after a week of cutting salt, they no longer miss it. As you use less salt, your preference for it lessens, allowing you to enjoy the taste of food itself. Three grains of salt on a bite of food tastes about the same as six grains. You're just adding more of the same flavor, a really strong flavor to start with, so it really doesn't make much of a difference in taste!"

Challenges: Is health a challenge in your life? Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship - Buddha

Triumphs: I love taking hot baths with Epsom salts - great magnesium for the body and also draws out toxins.

What I Ate Today:

Breakfast: 2 nectarines. 1 orange. 1 grapefruit.

Lunch: 1 avocado with brazil nuts.

Dinner: A salad made from corriander (cilantro) and parsley as the base, with avocado, hemp seeds, lemon, and a little olive oil.

Dessert: A mango!

Snacks: 2 nectarines.

Exercise: A dance in the morning to my favourite music, a leg workout at the gym with weights and walking in the arvo :)

158 days to go!!!

References:

www.thegardendiet.com
www.theearthdiet.org
www.korawebb.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_salt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodised_salt
http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/himalayan-crystal-salt-benefits/
http://naturalbias.com/the-truth-about-salt/
http://products.mercola.com/himalayan-salt/