![\"Sodium](\"https:\/\/naturallyintense.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Fotolia_171660645_Subscription_Monthly_M-1024x524.jpg\")
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Sea salt and pink salt aren\u2019t better than table salt, its all all sodium chloride (NaCl) and as such they all have the exact same effect in our bodies, regardless of whether the salt comes from the sea, a Himalayan mountain range or a factory. No matter how much profit-minded food manufacturers try to instill sea salt and pink salt with mystical health benefits that defy the laws of biochemistry, it\u2019s not that different from table salt, and you are best served by having neither as regular additions to your diet if you are interested in optimum health. The \u201csea-salt-is-better-than-table-salt\u201d and \u201cpink-salt-is-better-than-table-salt\u201d campaigns are perfect examples of deliberate misinformation strategies to distract the consumer from the reality that they are all unquestionably unhealthy. Our affinity for salty foods and adding salt to our foods is a very human trait, and people like the idea of being able to have as much salt and salty foods without worrying about it adversely affecting their health. So, while public health advisories about the dangers of high sodium intake abound, the sale of salty foods and high sodium products remain high, thanks to clever marketing. Food conglomerates figured out a way not only to make salt appear healthy, but exotic and as such are also able to charge you more for it! In the smoke and mirrors game called \u201cremarketing\u201d and \u201crebranding\u201d food manufacturers claim that while regular or table salt is bad for you, sea salt and pink salt are somehow very different from table salt, and actually have beneficial and medicinal properties! It\u2019s quite an attractive lure, you can keep enjoying salty foods with no concern at all for your health if they are made with the more \u201corganic\u201d and \u201cnatural\u201d sea salt or pink salt. But as much as marketing hype might claim that sea salt and pink salt are wonder products that can do everything from increasing your energy to fighting cancer, sea salt and pink salt are not only just as bad as table salt but may be worse for your health as the health claims make you more likely to consume more of it! In this article we will look at the chemistry of sea salt, pink salt and table salt and show why neither of them should be regular additions to the diet of anyone serious about optimum health.<\/p>\n
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As we mentioned earlier, table salt is made mostly of sodium chloride (NaCl), which is made up of two volatile elements, sodium and chloride. The element sodium is given to bursting into flames when in contact with water, and chlorine in its gaseous form is extremely poisonous, and has been used in chemical warfare since World War I. Thus, it\u2019s a bit ironic that together they make a food additive that has been such an integral part of human history. There are many kinds of salts, but sodium chloride is the one that we consume and use as a preservative, and it\u2019s the salt responsible for the taste that we refer to as \u2018salty\u2019. Chloride and sodium, the two components of table salt, are required by all known forms of life on earth. Chloride is essential for respiration and digestion, while sodium is an essential mineral that our body is incapable of producing, and so it must be obtained from the dietary sources. Sodium helps our cells transport oxygen from the air we breathe, and nutrients from the foods we eat. It also helps with the transmission of nerve impulses that allow us to control our muscles both consciously, (as is the case with moving your arms or walking), and automatically, (as in the case of the muscle contractions of your heart). Sodium also plays a part in regulating blood volume and the balance of water in our cells.[1] The average adult human contains about 250 grams of salt, which is about enough to fill three to four salt shakers, but our bodies are constantly losing sodium through sweat, urine and respiration and so we need to always have some sodium in our daily diet.[2]\n
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Now as indispensable as may sound, we only need sodium it in very small quantities, 2,300 milligrams to 1,500 milligrams a day is about enough, depending on your age and ethnicity. [3] Unfortunately, most Americans ingest anywhere from 2,700 to as much as 7,000 milligrams of sodium daily, with a little over 75% of that sodium coming from salt added to processed foods. The trouble with sodium is that our taste buds can become desensitized to it over time so if you have a regular high sodium intake, it becomes more and more difficult to determine how much sodium you are actually consuming on a daily basis. Consider that just 1 teaspoon of salt yields slightly more sodium than the upper range of what your body needs for the day, (just about 2,400 milligrams of sodium) and the difficulty in recognizing high sodium foods as being salty if you are regularly consuming it and it should be no surprise that most people easily ingest more sodium than they should. Even if you aren\u2019t using a salt shaker! Why should you care about high sodium intakes? Large long term studies have consistently found that lower sodium intakes are associated with lower blood pressure values, which lowers your risk of hypertension, strokes and heart attacks.[3,4,5] Excess sodium intake has been linked to an increase in the incidence of gastric cancer, kidney stones and osteoporosis, and so as good as it may make your food taste, you have to be careful not to have too much of it.[6] (See my article on Osteoporosis<\/a> here).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sea Salt & Pink Salt Isn\u2019t Better Than Table Salt: The Solution to The Problem Of Reduced Sodium Intake<\/p>\n The official stance shared unanimously by all major dietary organizations is that everyone in the general population, children and adults should lower their sodium intake as much as possible by consuming fewer processed foods that are high in sodium and by using LITTLE OR NO SALT when preparing or eating foods.[4] That\u2019s not a call to eat less salt, it\u2019s a call to eliminate it completely from your daily diet. Studies show that adding salt to foods makes us eat more, which is the prime directive of any food company trying to maximize profits and survive in a overly abundant food market. (See my article on the Economics of Obesity: How The Food Industry Makes You Overeat<\/a> for a detailed overview). Faced with such dire health advisories, the work around for the problem came in the form of sea salt. Which many perceive sea salt and pink type salts as being somewhat exotic and distinctly different from table salt, it isn\u2019t that different at all. It all boils down to our natural inclinations towards associations. The sea and the ocean are seen associated with nature and by extension, purity. Thus, we can have unconsciously reactions to an image of sea salt taken directly from the life-giving sea by \u2018traditional\u2019 methods that have been used for centuries. The nostalgic allure of age-old traditions (which we associate with being good) versus modern processes, (which are often thought to be bad), isn\u2019t about creating a healthy product for you, it\u2019s just brilliant marketing that tugs at all the right strings to make you more likely to purchase their product. Himalayan pink salt, mined the traditional way from one of the most exotic locations on earth, also conjures up a perception that it might be good for you, and I hate to say this, but if it was called Pakistani pink salt, which it is, as it comes from the Punjab region of Pakistan, it simply would not sell as well and people would be less inclined to believe it to have wondrous properties. As the country Pakistan does not have the same associations as \u201cHimalayan.\u201d Unfortunate, but true.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before delving into how salt as made, it\u2019s important to note that huge food corporations such as Cargill and Morton own most of the saltworks in the industry. Table salt and most of the sea salt sold on the market all come from the same giant conglomerate, (more proof that sea salt isn\u2019t better than table salt!) All salts that we use for food is produced one of three ways, from mining naturally occurring rock deposits, vacuum evaporation and solar evaporation. In rock salt mining, as is the case with Himalayan pink salts, the salt is mined directly from large underground deposits and is then purified and processed. Most of the table salt produced comes from vacuum evaporation, which is done by dissolving rock salt with water to create a brine solution. This solution is then pumped into a vacuum evaporator that removes all the air and boils off the water, leaving behind pure salt. Calcium silicate is then added to keep the salt from clumping together and so that it flows freely when poured from its container. Potassium iodide is often to most salts as a dietary source of iodine, with some dextrose (sugar) added to keep the iodide stable. Sea salt comes from evaporated seawater, which has a concentration of 2.7% sodium chloride. Seawater also contains small amounts of calcium, magnesium, and sulfate ions, elements that give sea salt a particularly different taste than table salt. With solar evaporation, seawater is corralled into shallow ponds and then dried by the action of the sun and wind to create layers of highly concentrated sodium chloride. This salt is then rinsed to remove impurities, then dried a second time. And in some cases, it is processed via vacuum evaporation to create a commercially usable sea salt. The resulting salt is about 99.5% sodium chloride, which isn\u2019t that different from table salt, except that it usually costs significantly more (which also makes you more likely to believe it to be healthier, by the way), and due to the presence of other minerals there is a difference in texture. Free flowing agents are not usually added to sea salt, so it tends to be in more of a rock form than the salt shaker ready small grains of table salt. That said, there are no differences in negative health outcomes from using sea salt over table salt.[7,8] While marketing may extoll the \u2018natural process\u2019 of solar salt extraction from the sea or the \u2018nutritious trace minerals\u2019 found in sea salt, the fact of the matter remains that it\u2019s still ultra-high levels sodium chloride and the extra minerals can\u2019t do anything to offset the adverse health risks caused by having too much of it in your diet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are some who argue that a lower sodium diet is a mistake since we need salt as part of our diet for optimal health. However, such logic simply does not stand up to anthropological observations of societies where added salt is not a regular part of the human diet. These populations have no ill effects from not directly consuming salt, nor do they have the high rates of hypertension and heart disease that is the main cause of death here in Western developed countries where sodium consumption is high. We are nothing but the product of hundreds of thousands of generations of hominid adaptation to the natural environment, and natural sources of salt are very rare unless you lived by the sea. As a result, for millions of years, the average daily sodium intake of our ancestors was far lower than what it is for most people living today in a world where we have an seemingly limitless supply of salt. Looking at the issue from this perspective brings into focus the fact that there is somewhat of an evolutionary mismatch.[12 ] A mismatch between how much sodium our bodies were once used to having (and what is most logically our optimal intake) and the amount of sodium the average Westerner ingests daily today.\u00a0 Our hunter gatherer ancestors (and modern foraging societies tribes such as the Masai) who consumed a largely carnivorous diet have sodium intakes of between 1,000 to 2,00 milligrams of sodium daily. Where do they get this much sodium, you might ask if they don\u2019t have access to salt? The sodium comes from the wild animals they consume, as all animal food sources naturally contain significant amounts of sodium. Which is why as long as you have some protein in your diet, your sodium intake would still be equal to if not more than enough sodium for your body\u2019s daily requirements. Even if you never cooked with or added any salt to your meals. Looking at the other end of the spectrum, a low sodium diet doesn\u2019t seem to have any ill effects as the Yanomami Indians, who eat a mostly vegetarian diet, have a very low sodium intake throughout the course of their lives and suffer no ill effects from it.[9] In fact, the Yanomami have almost no cases of hypertension or obesity [9] and it is interesting that both the Masai and Yanomami both have much higher potassium intakes compared to the average daily potassium intake in developed countries. Studies show that men and women with higher potassium intakes tend to have lower blood pressure and a lower risk of hypertension and unfortunately excessive sodium intake can increase your body\u2019s requirements for potassium. [4]\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The problem with a high salt diet is that your body can only use a certain amount and all the excess salt ends up in your blood. Sodium has the effect of pulling fluids from the body\u2019s tissues and into the circulatory system. Increasing your overall blood volume. Your heart is a pump that has to pump hard enough to circulate your blood throughout your arteries and back via your veins. If blood volume increases, your heart has to pump more forcefully, which elevates the blood pressure in your arteries. This is how hypertension can develop, and over time, the increased blood pressure stresses the heart and arterial walls, which triggers a cascade of inflammation that can cause hardening of the arteries, plaque buildup and thus increase the occurrence of stroke and or heart attacks.[13] This would not be the case if we were designed for a high sodium diet, but it is an evolutionary mismatch that is partly responsible for millions of preventable deaths each year. We don\u2019t know what the minimum sodium dose is that brings about increases in blood pressure enough to cause adverse health effects and so it is advisable to never have salt as part of your diet, regardless of whether it\u2019s sea salt, pink salt or any new type of salt that pops up on the market. Salt’s quality of increasing water retention can also make you see some large swings on the scale and having a high sodium diet while losing weight can also make it a little harder to deal with loose skin if you are losing a significant amount of weight. See my article Dealing with Loose Skin<\/a>. and How To Stop Stress Eating<\/a> for more detailed information on how salt adversely affects us.<\/p>\n Studies show that in developed countries, blood pressure increases with age, a phenomenon that starts early in childhood and continually increases as you get older. Given this pattern, attempts to moderate blood pressure increases are important at ALL stages of life and you can\u2019t simply wait to reduce your sodium intake when it starts to become a problem. Most importantly, ALL research shows a consistent pattern of lower blood pressure among groups with lower sodium intakes. Which makes it hard to find any health value of sea salt, pink salt or any salty and high sodium foods as part of a healthy diet. Especially when nearly one out of three Americans have high blood pressure and that a quarter of the population is already pre-hypertensive.[10,11] If anything, the popular idea that sea salt, pink salts and Himalayan salts are okay, while table salt is bad, only increases overall consumption, as consumers believe that it won\u2019t adversely affect them the way regular salt would.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the 1980\u2019s when links between sodium intake and hypertension were first discovered, the strategy was to advise the public to eliminate the salt shaker from their tables, and today many are puzzled to find themselves to be hypertensive or pre-hypertensive even though they don\u2019t cook with or add salt to their foods. The problem is that salt is everywhere and is few are aware that the number one sources of salt isn\u2019t from people adding salt to their foods, it\u2019s from processed foods with added sodium.<\/p>\n![\"Namakdan](\"https:\/\/naturallyintense.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Fotolia_254324168_Subscription_Monthly_M-1024x683.jpg\")
Sea Salt & Pink Salt Isn\u2019t Better Than Table Salt: How Salt Is Made<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Sea Salt & Pink Salt Isn\u2019t Better Than Table Salt: Arguments For Not Restricting Salt Intake<\/span><\/h4>\n
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Sea Salt & Pink Salt Isn\u2019t Better Than Table Salt: Why You Need To Minimize Salt Intake<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n
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<\/p>\nSea Salt & Pink Salt Isn\u2019t Better Than Table Salt: Hidden Sources of Sodium To Be Avoided<\/span><\/strong><\/h6>\n
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