I call it the Great Salt Debate. Are you wondering if table salt or sea salt can be healthy? If either convey health benefits? If either table salt or sea salt can be harmful to your health?
Just as a deer in nature seeks out salt licks because its body knows it needs that salt to thrive, our bodies need salt and its components to function well.
No wonder I craved salt so much in my late 20’s and 30’s; I was craving its nutrients! Iodine is required by the thyroid to synthesize hormones and to regulate the metabolism. When I got Hashimoto’s Disease I had hypothyroidism, partially signified by poor sleep (hormones gone awry) and weight gain (metabolic imbalance). My thyroid was not getting enough iodine! Although iodine supplementation is controversial, it was obvious I was deficient.
Craving salt is also a sign of adrenal fatigue. Many of our body’s organs require salt to function properly.
FACTORY MADE TABLE SALT
The United States started adding iodine to highly refined table salt in 1924 in response to sweeping outbreaks of goiter and increased levels of mental retardation in the northern states, where iodine-rich foods were in short supply, foods like seaweed, dairy, eggs and seafood.
But factory-made foods containing refined salt are not fortified with iodine. Therefore, while table salt is amended with iodine, salty foods are not a source for iodine.
This is all sounds great and straightforward: get iodine from table salt or eat foods the northerners couldn’t get their hands on, right?
Instead, I’m a fan of eliminating table salt and replacing it with sea salt. We certainly don’t want to eliminate fortified table salt and not make sure to have an iodine-rich diet.
IODINE-RICH FOODS, INCLUDING SEA SALT, ARE HELPFUL BECAUSE THE RIGHT CO-FACTORS ARE PRESENT.
Factory-made salt can’t and doesn’t team iodine with the other nutrients it’s found paired with in nature — nutrients that help it to assimilate properly.
Iodized salt did help solve the goiter epidemic of the 20’s but there was a tragic increase in a thyroid autoimmune condition, thyroiditis. Why add iodine to a highly refined product, one that usually contains aluminum (to prevent caking) instead of consuming salt in its original form?
We can trust foods found in nature. When we alter foods, we have a Frankenstein situation with unpredictable, often disease-causing effects.
In its original form salt contains not only trace amounts of iodine, but other minerals that are valuable in their own right and that in conjunction with one another help us to assimilate nutrients on a cellular level, co-factors.
These trace minerals, found naturally occurring in salt, are all beneficial and necessary for our bodies to thrive.
I discuss this balance, and the electrolytes our bodies gain from salt, in my article Water is Not Enough: WHY TO SALT YOUR WATER!, found at my blog Eat Beautiful.
As with white, refined sugar, refined salt has been stripped of its nutrients and harmful, man-made chemicals have been added.
No wonder salt can be linked to heart disease, high blood pressure and strokes. Table salt and processed foods that contain refined salt should be avoided completely and considered dangerous factory-made foods. I will not touch white salt, even at a restaurant.
But sea salt, or naturally occurring salt found in caves, rivers and lakes, is a mineral-rich health food. It does not lead to heart disease or cause other health risks.
Just the opposite.
WHAT TRACE MINERALS ARE FOUND IN SEA SALT?
Salt is comprised of sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl). Sodium is used by the body, in part, to digest carbohydrates. Chloride, among its other purposes, is used by the body to break down proteins, and also has anti-pathogen properties.
Iron, iodine, magnesium, potassium, and zinc comprise a complex and subtle total of over 80 trace minerals, ones that regulate our hydration, digestion, and immune system as well as being required for proper thyroid and adrenal function.
I don’t personally believe that nutrition is found in nature on accident. It is there to bless us and the animals that consume it.
Humans often want to quantify value in terms of quantity. There has to be a lot of some measurable nutrient for us to believe it is worthy. This is just not so. Sea salt offers our bodies the subtle balance of nutrients they crave, co-factors present in perfect ratio to one another to benefit our systems.
WHAT NATURAL SEA SALTS ARE THE BEST?
Not all sea salt is made equally, of course. There are refined sea salts, even, those that look white. You want a salt that looks mineral rich; your eyes are a good judge!
(Click here to see which sea salt I recommend for everyday use.)
That stuff is mined right here in the U.S., so it’s as local a sea salt as we’re likely to get.
Himalayan sea salt and Celtic sea salt are also favorites.
BEYOND CONSUMPTION
Beyond consumption, salt air is used as a respiratory therapy for asthma and other lung conditions. Visit my Eat Beautiful Facebook page this week for a look at salt therapy techniques. In addition to helping acute lung issues, these methods strengthen the immune system, calm a stressed mind, help with ear infections and seasonal allergies, and improve skin issues! Salt therapy offers both anti-bacterial and anti-inflammation properties.
Whether we source salt naturally to consume it, or breath in salt air, salt has healing effects because our bodies need it for optimum health.
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I have some of that. Havent tried it yet.
I sure do 🙂
Yup
Himalayan salt comes from a salt mine in Pakistan, about 2000 km from the himalaya. The working conditions there as you can imagine are shocking. The first world supports this by buying the so called healthy salt. Himalaya salt is a food scam. Salt is sodium chloride and so is Himalayan salt. It is 98% sodium chloride. People use more salt when using so called “healthy salts” because they think they are better than normal sea salt. So Himalaya salt and other “health” salts actually add to the problems we have from eating too much sodium. And don’t even get me started on kosher salt.
Please Food Renegade, don’t become a Food babe!
I can’t believe how uninformed but opinionated this sounds… Pakistan Himalayas May not be the best Himalayan salt, but the point is that it is mined, is pristinely unpolluted, unradiated, etc, and has trace minerals in it that we need.
Sea salt is mostly polluted now, and since Fukushima, irradiated, too.
Last tidbit… Typical table salt contains NaCl, along with silica and glass… Which scores/scratches vessels, sending cholesterol to the rescue, which is why they, originally tied high cholesterol to heart disease, high BP, etc, which is all wrong.
Google it, learn the facts before you act like you’re an expert.
Silica and GLASS? please provide documentation for what you are referring to.
I switched to sea salt almost two years ago. I do not eat more salt, in fact I use less salt than I did growing up on table salt. A lot less. To group everyone together into your opion with no backing what so ever is offensive.
I use less also I think sea salt has a stronger flavor so you don’t need as much to get the desired taste.
Jeanette Campbell please take time to read this!
Thank you for the post! I have been using this same sea salt that you recommend for about a year and a half. I’m worried about getting enough iodine though. What do you recommend?
Hi Lesli, You’ll definitely want to run this by a naturopathic doctor for a professional assessment of your levels and for dosage; but I do, in general, recommend iodine supplementation from my experience. I like i-Throid or Nascent Iodine. In Japan they consume up to 12-13mg. of iodine daily. That’s the maximum amount and would be too much for some people.
I’ve spent a few hours looking for any references, studies, expert opinions, or even logical reasons to believe that real salt (sea salt, salt from old sea beds…) is better than table salt. Yes, the idea of trace minerals, no additives including iodine sounds good, but if we get these trace minerals from other food, why is regular salt so bad. I am personally convinced that table salt is bad, but I can’t find any believable references, just a lot of weak testimonies.
What are your feelings about Himalayan Pink Salt?
Hi Carol, my feeling on Himalayan pink salt is based on my naturopathic doctor’s view. I was getting headaches from it; so I asked him. He said that French sea salt is the best. Himalayan, being mined, is highly compressed and does not assimilate as well. Sea salt, in contrast, was only “recently” evaporated and will quickly and easily go back to liquid form, assimilating beautifully. Cheers.
I’m so happy to see this article. It’s put together quite well. I’ve been wanting to write my own article but haven’t found the time. There are so many relatives and friends who comment on how bad salt is and see them as being all the same. Just recently someone commented that they don’t do sauerkraut any more because she has to watch her salt intake. I simply said, “Well, I use organic sauerkraut because it contains sea salt rather than just table salt.” She looked at me like I had horns in my head! I’ll have to pass this along!
So, I have the Whole Foods 365 brand Sea Salt, and the packaging says it’s “natural, unrefined, and minimally processed”, but it looks white to me. They say it’s harvested off the coast of Catalonia, Spain. Is this just marketing and I should use my eyes as a good judge, or is it possible to have white sea salt that isn’t overly processed as Whole Foods is claiming on the label?
Finally! Someone reporting the truth about salt! This information is rare but real. Thanks for posting.
Now I know. I wonder why some salty food put on their labels: fortified with iodine.
Thanks for the info!
Thanks for your article. You will want to check this information for yourself, but thought you’d like to hear about this. A local science teacher presented this at our Weston Price meeting. He conducted a chemical analysis of three salts including your favorite daily use salt. Many of our attendees also use the same salt for daily use you site. According to the analysis shared this salt has 15.9ppm nitrates and 13.8 ppm flouride. I do not know if additional analyses would read differently. You may want to do your own research. This information altered my view of this particular salt.
One is medicine to the body the other like poison.. I love my sea salt and pink salt
yes. Celtic Sea Salt–Flower of the Ocean. The best.
Himalayan pink, alderwood smoked sea salt, rosemary sea salt, French grey sea salt…haven’t had “iodized” salt in years. 😉
Honestly I can’t stand the taste of sea salt. It’s extremely frustrating that I now need to avoid hundreds of products that have switched from salt to sea salt. Just this weekend I had a craving for dry roasted sunflower kernels. I ended up with nothing because every jar had sea salt on the label instead of plain old regular salt. Very frustrating these days.
sea salt is better than table salt because it gives you necessary minerals. It is good for taste and health. Thanks for sharing such wonderful article.
My sister told me that she needs sea salt to cure some pork, and she doesn’t know where she can find some. I think I’ll buy her some gourmet sea salt if I find some if this will give her the flavor that she needs. It’s interesting to know that sea salt contains the right amount of iodine that we need along with other minerals that are valuable for our bodies, so this convinces me to switch to sea salt as well.
I get lost in all the descriptions of all the different salt types to be found. Even after reading several articles in one sitting, I’m no closer to answers to the questions I was looking for. Such as, my particular type of sea salt never seemed to come up. I purchased the Morton brand Mediterranean Sea salts, both fine & coarse. Plus years ago I purchased Alessi Mediterranean fine sea salt. I was looking to see if I can use any or all of these to cook with. I usually don’t sprinkle a lot of salt (if any) on my already cooked dishes.
I also needed to understand how to measure these salts in recipes, if it is different than measuring everyday table salts. Plus, are they useable in dessert recipes ?
If I can learn how to use these, I’ll be glad to stop using table salt altogether.
Thank you for your article ! And for sharing things you’ve learned with us !
Sincerely,
Diane Lee