Salt
Boy do we need salt. Salt is a mineral consisting of both Sodium and Chloride; salt and Sodium Chloride are interchangeable in everyday language. It is an essential nutrient for our systems and is vital as one of our most important electrolytes that allow cell membrane stability and give us the electrical stimulation needed for muscular contraction. Salt has been the best-known food preservative for thousands of years and this is especially so for meat. In some cultures, over the years, salt was so important that it has been used as currency. The word ‘salary come from the Latin word for salt and the word salad literally means ‘salted’ and comes from the ancient Roman practice of salting leaf vegetables. And, salt has been so important that wars have been fought over it, governments have taxed it, and in 1930, Mahatma Gandhi led at least 100,000 people on the Dandi March, defying British rule; this inspired millions of Indians to move for independence from British control. Salt, indeed, has been a very important substance throughout history.
And salt continues to be a very important substance to us today by its ability to flavor foods; especially in processed food which not only stimulate the flavors but also is a preservative. The food industry began to realize just how important salt is to our taste that they add it to almost everything we eat..except whole plant foods. Our basic taste receptors are saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, sourness and savoriness (often called ‘umami’, a Japanese term which translates to ‘delicious’. It can be very stimulating; think of the salty items given to customers in bars.
So, yes, boy or boy we need salt….but it appears that too much of a good thing is not always good. In relation to salt too much is NOT a good thing. Physicians have instructed their patients with High Blood Pressure to cut back on salt…and their blood pressure drops. Put them back on salt and the pressure goes up…and the more sodium you give them, the higher the BP goes up. In the famous ‘Inter-Salt’ study in which there were 52 research sites in 32 countries, they found that in populations that ate very little salt, not a single case of high blood pressure was found. In fact the older folks had the same blood pressure as the teenagers.
Keep in mind that there have been many articles that dispute these finding; and also, please keep in mind that these articles are typically written by individuals or group that have been paid in one way or another by the ‘special interest groups’.
