Unrefined salt healthier for you
SALT is one ingredient that we cannot avoid while cooking or in our daily intakes of foods. It has bad and good effects on your overall health.
Nutritional therapist Nicola Bentley from Evolution Café Xperience says: “On average a person needs no more than 1 500mg of salt a day.
“The problem in South Africa is that the average intake of salt is almost double, and 75% of sodium eaten is not from the salt shaker but through processed prepackaged foods,” she adds.
In recent years salt has developed a bad reputation from some of the health gurus, and many people are trying to cut down on it for many reasons.
One is that the regular table salt is bleached with chemicals and then heated to extremely high temperatures and iodine that is added is almost a synthetic which our bodies find difficult to digest.
It is stripped of the majority of minerals with the exception of sodium and chloride.
Bentley says we should avoid excessive sodium as it causes the body to retain water, increasing blood volume and causing the heart to work harder and adding pressure to the arteries.
There are many alternatives to salting your food.
Bentley suggests that one must eat as close to nature as possible by eating fresh food rather than processed foodstuffs.
Nepheritie Jade, integrative functional nutritionist says: “Salt has benefits to your health if used correctly, such as, promoting a stable pH balance within the cells, prevents muscle cramps, strengthens bones, improves circulation, as well as helping with detoxifying the body of heavy metals.”
While many have not mastered the correct way of using it, Jade recommends Himalayan salt rather than regular salt due to its health benefits.
“Himalayan salts are a rich source of some very important minerals; sodium chloride, sulphate, calcium, potassium and magnesium, all of which our body needs.
“It contains the same 84 trace minerals and elements that are found in the human body,” explains Jade.
Another health benefit of Himalayan salt is that it gives you less sodium intake than table salt, because it is not refined and the crystals are larger. “The minerals in this salt exist in colloidal form, which means that they are small enough for our cells to easily absorb,” concludes Jade.