After my recent letter to you on body alkalinity and salt intake, reader R.K. wrote in and asked:
"Good day, Bob. I am a subscriber and look forward to your letters. I am writing because their seems to be some conflicting information between you and many publications regarding sodium intake. There will be drastic results that will occur if one follows the wrong path. What am I to believe? Please advise your thoughts and help make people aware."
The never-ending advice to cut back on salt fails to give the whole story on this misunderstood substance. In fact, if you don't get enough of the right kind of salt, you may be sowing the seeds of your own health destruction.
If you're a regular reader, you already know I don't recommend "lowering your salt intake" or any of the low-sodium nonsense spouted by the medical industry. Why?
Salt tales
Well, we first have to remember that Americans think that salt is salt. Not so at all.
The white stuff most people have on their kitchen table is commercial refined salt. It has been harvested mechanically from various salt mines as brine. Brine is a highly concentrated solution of water and salt. But before the salt is mechanically evaporated, the brine is doused with chemicals that remove from the salt all the minerals beneficial to your health so they can be resold to other industries.
The minerals are considered "impurities." There are at least 17 healthy minerals and micronutrients in sea salt, and according to Western Analysis, Inc., sea salt can have as many as 75 minerals and trace elements. But the food industry gets rid of them, and the chemicals used to remove them can include sulfuric acid or chlorine.
Next, water is evaporated under high compression and heat which disrupts the very molecular structure of salt. Finally, almost all of the moisture in the salt is removed in a fluidized-bed dryer. The result is "food grade salt," which has to comply with the National Academy of Science's Food Chemicals Codex Sodium Chloride Monograph (1996). That means that up to 2 percent of food-grade salt may contain anti-caking, free-flowing or conditioning agents.
These could be sodium ferrocyanide, ammonium citrate, and aluminum silicate, which have zero benefit to your body. The sugar dextrose — you might know it as refined sugar — is used as a stabilizer so that iodide will stay in the salt.
Contents of Refined Iodized Salt
| Sodium | ~39% | | Chloride | ~60% | | Ferrocyanide, Aluminum Silicate, Ammonium Citrate, Dextrose | up to 2% | | Iodide | .01% |
In other words, what industry considers between 99.7-99.95 percent "pure" food-grade salt is a refined product that barely resembles salt; has been treated with harsh man-made chemicals that make it "pure"; has been loaded up with fillers that are somehow considered pure; and has had essential minerals like magnesium, potassium and calcium removed because they're considered "impurities."
The difference in health effects is great, but the FDA never differentiates between types of salt.
Government action
If a government wants to create a revolution, they can withhold salt. The British put a tax on salt in India in the 1930s and this triggered Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent revolution that finally expelled the British from India.
Natural sea salt is the elixir of life and fundamental to the biological processes:
- It is a major component of blood plasma. It carries nutrients into and out of the cells.
- It helps the lining of the blood vessels to regulate blood pressure. (It is sugar that causes high blood pressure.)
- It helps regulate the propagation of nerve impulses.
- It helps the brain send communication signals to the muscles so the body moves in a coordinated manner (sodium-potassium ion exchange).
- Very importantly, sea salt alkalizes the pH of the body, which is very important for total health.
- Adequate natural sea salt restricts your craving for fructose (sugar).
Low salt dangers
From the article Critical Salt Information from Unconventional Wisdom by Emma Ross: "A low-salt diet may not be so healthy after all. Defying a generation of health advice, a controversial new study concludes that the less (sea salt) people eat, the higher their risk of untimely death.
"The study, led by Dr. Michael Alderman, Chairman of Epidemiology at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York and President of the American Society of Hypertension, suggests that the U.S. government should suspend its recommendation that people restrict the amount of (sea) salt they eat.
"The lower the sodium, the worse off you are."
Salt myths
While we have been taught that too much (sea) salt causes high blood pressure (swelling), kidney problems, heart problems, etc., the opposite is true.
We are told by the FDA that a salt-free diet is best for good health. Physicians and cardiologists in particular have brainwashed their patients against (sea) salt.
I am a heart patient with high blood pressure. I take 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt with a glass of water several times a day. I have cut my blood pressure medication in half. Of course, I emphasize that you use sea salt because of its vital mineral elements.
On the other hand, everyday sodium chloride table salt is toxic and dangerous in the long-term. It causes dehydration and cellular fluid imbalance. But this sodium chloride is exactly what the FDA and your doctor recommends.
Salt facts
During the Middle Ages, having no salt was so hazardous that criminals were often put to death by being put in a cell and deprived of salt. This caused slow, agonizing death.
Two thousand years ago salt was used as money. Gold and salt had the same value.
The word "salary" comes from salt.
In the old days — oh, say, 60 years ago — salt was a food preservative used to cure meat. But today we refrigerate food; so, far less salt is used.
All warm-blooded animals must have salt to live.
- The human brain and spine are in a bath of saltwater called CSF (cerebrospinal fluid). This saltwater circulates throughout the brain and spinal cord.
- We all spent approximately nine months in our mother's womb floating in saltwater (amniotic fluid).
- Our tears are salty and we sweat salt. Ever notice your dog or cat licking your arm for the salt?
- Our bones are hollow in the center (marrow) where blood cells are made. The marrow has many strands of calcium salts. Salt is what makes our bones hard, not the calcium. Twenty-seven percent of the body's salt is located in the bones. If the body requires more salt, it borrows it from the bones, making the bones thinner, softer and brittle.
High value
Because salt minerals in their natural state are valuable, they are removed for big profits, leaving the people only toxic sodium chloride as table salt. This is the toxic and highly refined salt that the FDA wants people to consume. Of course, in its discussions, it omits any mention of natural whole sea salt.
It is deceptive for the FDA to advocate salt limitation when what the agency really means is sodium chloride: We should cut out sodium chloride.
It is very, very important to use sea salt and water to keep the body alkaline for total health. Sea salt neutralizes acidity. Alkalinity causes the body to hold more oxygen. Progressive accumulation of acid becomes death. Death is acid. The American diet is mostly acid.
For more information, see Water and Salt, The Essence of Life by Dr. Barbara Hendel and biophysicist Peter Ferreira; Salt Your Way to Health by Dr. David Brownstein, M.D.
Yours for the truth,
Bob Livingston
Editor, The Bob Livingston Letter® |
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