Six Reasons to Avoid Salt + Healthier Alternatives

Salt is in almost all the foods people eat today, that is most processed, canned and frozen foods.  Not to mention, many use salt when cooking and then add more to the prepared food before even taking a bite. The body only needs a mere 200-280 milligrams of sodium a day, yet the average American consumes 4,000-6,000 milligrams! No wonder so many people are suffering with salt related diseases.

Here are six important reason to cut back or even avoid salt in your diet:

1) Sodium Chloride (salt) in ANY form is an irritant and is toxic to the body.

2) It actually deadens the sense of the taste buds, (which explains why so many salt users say that their food has no taste without it).

3) Being refined it has had the minerals stripped from it, thus every time you eat it the body has to utilize nutrients from its tissues to digest it. This speeds up the aging process leading to premature aging.

4) To give you an idea of the irritating effect it has on the body just pour salt on an open wound (ouch!). It has the same irritating effect upon the body and its delicate membranes, especially in cases such as gastritis or ulcers.

5) Because of its toxicity, it must be diluted in water by the cells, causing water retention.

6) Salt directly effects and or aggravates many conditions as hypertension, obesity, migraines, PMS, fatigue, all cardiovascular related diseases, and stroke just to mention a few.

Where is the best source of sodium to be found?

We should be looking to LIVE foods as our nutrient sources. Vegetables HIGH in sodium include celery, spinach, chard and sea vegetables such as dulse or kelp. You can use a non-salt substitutes like dehydrated, ground celery or sea vegetables for recipes that call for salt.  If you must use salt for recipes that need it, Celtic sea salt or Himalayan salt are less refined and do not contain toxic chemical additives like table salt.  If you use it once in a while it may not be a problem, it’s what you do the majority of the time that counts.

It is so important to know what you are eating, this means reading the labels on your food.  Better yet, if the majority of your diet is fresh, ripe, organic fruits, vegetables including green leafy vegetables,  you don’t have to worry about what hidden ingredients you may be consuming.  They are filled with nothing but the essential nutrients that your body thrives on!