Salt Choices

Some Cure, Some Kill

Salt is necessary to regulate our body’s water content and affects various chemical functions including iodine levels that are so vital for immune and gland function, such as thyroid health. The key to benefit or detriment is largely in the kind of salt you ingest. While most now realize table salt is not the recommended choice, the emerging awareness in sea salts is that purity is dependent on where the salt ponds are located, how the salt is harvested and equally as important, the method of packaging.  But, for body uptake and health benefits, a pure, natural mineral salt containing all the minerals and enzymes of sea water is recommended.

Warnings about excess salt intake mainly apply to common table salt. While salt mines for table salt are deposits of former ancient seas, the salt is dried and processed at high temperatures, apparently leaving almost no mineral content. The resulting changes in structure are said to cause our body to not be able to fully process it, eventually resulting in adverse health. There are, then, enormous differences between refined table salt and natural salts with differences that can have major impact on our wellbeing. While it’s true that table salt has iodine added and sea salts have little iodine content, there are healthier ways to obtain your iodine than with table salt.

Unrefined and unprocessed sea salt is reported to be a balanced mixture of essential minerals in proportions that closely resemble our body’s chemical composition. In fact, without intake of a pure, mineralized salt, some of the difficulties our body may encounter range from respiratory and blood sugar difficulties to high blood pressure, cellular degeneration, kidney and adrenal stress,  fatigued muscles and excess water retention or weight.  

With the variety of salts now available, making an informed choice leaves us largely at the mercy of company promotional literature. My misconception that darker salt varieties indicated good mineral content vanished after listening to the experience of one Ontario salt supplier. After numerous inquiries about purity, he independently paid for testing by an Ontario laboratory for the sea salts he imported to sell. In the salt business for 10 years, his own research, testing and the education he received is worth repeating.

The lab tests showed the difference between table salt and sea salt can be a difference also found among varieties of sea salts and their levels of purity.  The colour of natural sea salt does not come from mineral content, but from the type and colour of the clay lining a salt pond. We see grey salts from the coastal region of France, for example, and red and black mineral sea salt options from Hawaii where ponds can either be lined with a red clay or a black clay. In contrast, if we look at a gourmet sea salt used on many television cooking shows, such as Flower of the Ocean, we find it’s a more expensive purchase at $35 per pound, it is pure white. That is not because of processing! The pure white appearance is because it’s harvested only during the two hottest weeks of summer when high natural heat causes the salt to crystallize and float on top of the salt pond. It can then be scooped out without disturbing the clay under the water. This demonstrates that a pure, natural sea salt complete with high mineral content is white and that the colour of a salt, in fact, shows combination with clay particles during the harvesting process. 

The second consideration when buying a pure salt is where it is harvested from in our world. With the northern hemisphere historically supporting the greatest population concentrations and more industrialization, it unfortunately results in the area having more pollution. This touches everything and everywhere, from our ground and our lakes to the people.  The third consideration is how salt from a natural salt pond is not only harvested, but equally importantly, how is it packaged for re-sale. If the harvesting is done with traditional methods of using wooden paddles but it is packaged through a metal machine, it electro-magnetically changes the salt.

 With the above in mind and test results supplied on various salts the supplier had compared, I now recommend and use Nature’s Cargo sea salts, harvested in South American salt ponds by traditional methods, where there has been and still is, less pollution. It has been independently tested in Ontario for purity and low levels of lead and aluminum, contrasting some salts that tested for surprisingly high lead content.

In natural salts, the silicon content normally cancels out any alum content unless the aluminum level is greatly above the natural balance found in healthy sea water. Nature’s Cargo unrefined sea salts can be safely ingested knowing you are obtaining its living enzymes and all of its beneficial elements found in pure sea water, with no chemicals or preservatives added and without packaging through metal machines. The Nature’s Cargo supplier further inspects it and purifies with light.  Pure mineral salts helps to balance and nourish our body with minerals we need. 

It is particularly good for helping to clear excessive mucous. Available in coarse or fine grain, it’s also an excellent salt for use in a neti pot. 

As in everything, salt should be taken in moderation, but you will find you need less of this salt for flavour enhancement.  It is worth remembering that sea salts do not contain high levels of iodine, an essential trace element needed for proper thyroid and immune function in everyone. For adequate intake of iodine if you switch to sea salts, be aware of obtaining your iodine through seaweed and kelp that can be added to soups or stews, eating seafood regularly, eggs, or using Lugol’s iodine drops if you don’t regularly eat seafood. To test if you need iodine (available at most health food stores), swab a small amount of iodine on your inner arm. If your arm is still coloured reddish at the 24-hour mark, you don’t need more iodine. If it is quickly absorbed with no sign of the colour left, you need more.