More to Salt Than Meets the Eye

Salt is essential for human life. Salt enhances the flavor of food, preserves food, helps to regulate and control normal body functions, and acts as a building block for more complex chemicals. Salt supports potassium absorption, enhances carbon dioxide transportation, regulates body fluid levels, and is an essential component of digestive acids. There are four commonly used types of salt:

Table salt. This is the most commonly used salt. Table salt, also called refined salt, is a fine-grained salt produced from either rock salt or sea salt. It often contains added potassium iodide, a dietary supplement that promotes thyroid gland function, and is then labeled as iodized salt. Table salt is refined salt, containing nearly pure (96% or greater) sodium chloride. It contains anti-caking compounds (aluminum silicate, calcium silicate or magnesium carbonate) to make it pour easily and resist humidity, dextrose, bleaching elements, and other chemicals.

There is a large body of evidence which suggests that the health of our Thyroid gland can be maintained with the iodine which occurs naturally in our foods via the soil foods are grown in. A problem with anti-caking chemicals is that while they prevent water absorption in the salt to keep it from clumping, they also interfere with the absorption of water in your body.

Sea Salt. This is salt produced from the evaporation of sea water. It contain a lower percentage of sodium chloride than table salt, significantly more potassium chloride, and no less than 82 other beneficial natural minerals. These minerals are essential to our health - a calcium, magnesium, or zinc deficiency permits sodium to accumulate in the body tissues.

Natural, unrefined, hand-harvested sea salt still has the same flavor it had when it was first removed from the ocean. It is free of drying agents, free of the chemicals used to prevent caking, and without added iodine.

Rock salt. Rock salt is produced from deposits of salt that are the remains of inland seas which evaporated thousands or millions of years ago. Rock salt forms in very large, chunky crystals, as opposed to the small crystals seen in table salt. The larger rock salt has a grayish color to it because it's not refined. Some pink salts, such as the salt harvested in the Himalayas, get their color from calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper and iron, Others contain carotene from salt-tolerant algae and are more peach-colored.

Interestingly, salt is the only rock or inorganic material eaten by humans. Many people prefer rock salt to other salt because the rock salt was deposited before humans created any pollution in the oceans. Rock salt and unrefined sea salt are commonly used in gourmet cooking, where top chefs do not tolerate anything that may introduce unwanted subtle flavours.

Low salt or lite salt. This is a salt that is even worse than any other. Used by people who wish to lower their intake of sodium, it normally consists of normal table salt blended with up to 50% potassium chloride. Unfortunately, excessive potassium is also as harmful to your health as excessive sodium, and furthermore, potassium chloride is a salt that leaves a distinctly bitter aftertaste.

Salt consumption is not the clear-cut issue that some health authorities would have us believe. There is no recommended daily allowance for salt because it is overly plentiful in natural food sources. It is when we introduce processed foods into our diet that our salt intake rises to alarming and dangerous levels.

Whether you use sea salt, table salt or some other type of salt, most experts recommend between 1,500 and 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day for healthy adults. While the additives in table salt have not been shown to be harmful to health, there is no evidence to suggest that these additives are beneficial to your health either. There is no doubt that the healthiest choice is to cut down on your intake of additives.