Hello Beautiful!

It looks like you're new to The Community. If you'd like to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

Salt

mewmewmintmewmewmint Raw Newbie

Was looking at a website while searching for recipes. A guy claims that people eat too much salt. The theory is:

-salt wasn’t available to our ancestors -the taste of things will improve if you quit salt for a while -things have the right amount of salt in them already -you’ll be healthier not eating salt

And I’m having a hard time with this because: -salt free recipes are hard to find -recipes that use salt usually taste crappy without it

If any of you have experience not eating salt for a while please let me know about it.

I’d like to know:

-how long you tried the no salt diet -what changes you noticed, if any -how long it took to get to a point where the changes occurred -recipes you used to stay salt free

«1

Comments

  • MOTHMOTH Raw Newbie

    I lived without salt for 3 months solid. I just had some salty stuff yesterday at a raw restaurant – first time in that three months I’ve been ‘out’. I believe salt can be beneficial in moderation, but I don’t like adding anything to my natural food, so I don’t seek it out.

    I just eat celery and tomatoes generally for my salt intake…the other day I realized in my hot yoga that I wasn’t getting enough salt; my sweat was watery, no salty taste at all, I was shaky, and I had chills.

    So after my salty food at the restaurant and a lot of tomatoes and celery, I had GREAT yoga practice today. I believe some salt is beneficial; but I prefer to use it like a medicine; not as a way to hide or enhance the taste of food.

    I will probably make it a point to eat a lot more tomatoes and celery for the next three months or so, salt-less otherwise, and see where that gets me.

  • mewmewmintmewmewmint Raw Newbie

    MOTH:

    Would you notice anything if you ate too much salt? Did the flavours of foods improve after three months of no salt?

  • mewmewmint – nice to see you – it’s been a while I think.

    It took me a long time to wean myself off of salt…at least 6 months – if not a bit longer. During this time things tasted pretty bland and I craved salty food. It almost felt like quitting smoking. When the cravings would come, I tried to stick to mono meals so that I could concentrate on one flavor. That seemed to help.

    Now, salt is an unpleasant taste and seems to send my body into high alert (not in a good way).

    I can’t say that I feel better or worse. I just believe that salt isn’t good for the body so I wanted to remove it.

    I hope that helps.

  • mewmewmintmewmewmint Raw Newbie

    Karuna: nice to meet you

    yes it helps.

    what kind of mono meals did you eat? what do you mean by mono meals?

    also: now that you’re off salt, if you made one of the recipes on here that used salt and left out the salt, do you think it would taste good?

    did flavors of other foods improve?

  • I don’t follow a strict no-salt diet but I don’t like it and I hardly ever use it. If you are interested in trying it but feel your food is too bland without it, try other spices to liven it up. Use onions and garlic as well as peppers and herbs. Check this out http://www.alsosalt.com/ I’m not really sure if that defeats the purpose but it’s just something I found quick on google.

  • heyenglishheyenglish Raw Newbie

    I’m currently craving salt ALL the time, which is a new thing for me, so my body is telling me I need salt at the moment… and I’m listening to it. However, another salt substitute is dulse flakes… or any sea vegetable for that matter. You could always try playing around with those instead of salt.

  • MOTHMOTH Raw Newbie

    I second the “high alert” feeling from adding salt now. I also got a headache after eating raw foods that had been salted the other night. I did however feel additional salt helped my body out in hot yoga – but I feel I could have done the same with lots of celery. My fruitarian ways must have rendered me low in salt.

    Mewmew – you will rediscover the tastes of food without salt. There is just a curve you have to get past. The true flavors of raw foods are flavorful enough on their own without the need to salt – why salt at all, that’s what I want to know, except if you need it for medicinal purposes? I have stopped seeing the point of salt. I don’t need it to make food taste good anymore; the food itself is enough.

    I will just continue loading up on celery/tomatoes and get my salt that way.

  • MOTHMOTH Raw Newbie

    Heyenglish! Yep, listen to that body…my body was definitely telling me I was low in salt the other night at yoga – which was why I don’t regret having a salty raw meal. I feel that at some points on a transition to raw the body strongly desires salt for some reason; I had a time where I couldn’t get enough seasalt, about the 3-4 100% raw mark. I was putting it on everything. At other points on the journey, salt just becomes not as necessary. At around 5 months raw, I started cutting it out, using it less and less, and rediscovering the natural salts in food.

  • For a LONG time I went without adding salt to anything. I developed a phobia of it and felt that if I ate food with sodium added or if I added sodium then I would bloat up and burst. Yes, fears can get this intense if you give them the power to do so.

    Everyone kept urging me to use pink sea salt as it’s rich in minerals and a wonderful source from the sea. It took many months to even consider it and about 4 months ago I got my first jar and LOVE IT. My nutritionist really urged me to buy some for it’s mineral content NOT for something to add flavor to foods, even though it brings out their natural flavor. It is quite hard for most Americans to be defecient in sodium – we need it a balance of it in our body for our electrolytes: sodium, potassium, chloride. I get regular bloodwork and prior to buying pink sea salt my bloodwork showed I was defecient in sodium. Defecient is never good. Balance is key. I was not eating enough natural sodium rich foods while I was defecient. I also wasn’t using my pink sea salt like I am now.

    Table salt is the devil himself. I use a high quality rock himalayian (spelling?) pink sea salt. When I was off salt I craved it, a ton, and it wasn’t healthy or balanced for me.

    There are foods that are naturally high in sodium – I recommend those to anyone who isn’t adding salt to their foods.

    Seaweeds rank on top of them all… I use dulse flakes on almost everything. I’ve even eaten them with blueberries and bananas. Seaweeds are great. Spinach and celery are also very good for sodium rich foods.

    Did the article you read refer to table salt? I have a feeling it did. There is a big difference between idoized table salt and quality sea salt.

    Please forgive the spelling errors. Spelling is my weak spot.

    Johnny

  • waterbaby12347waterbaby12347 Raw Newbie

    Mewmewmint~ When I was told my B/P was stroke level in 1982, I had to stop all salt & salt containing foods cold turkey-bad choice of words… Sorry…

    Anyway it was difficult at first but in no time I didn’t miss the salt… For 25 yrs I did without salt and food became tasty…

    When I went raw last Aug, I began to use a tiny bit of Himalaya salt in some recipes… If the recipe calls for a teaspoon, I use about an eighth of a teaspoon… I do not use salt in any other eating way…

    I do use a netipot if needed, about 3 or 4 times a year so far…

    Some of the symtoms of too much salt are elevated blood pressure, swelling of the feet & ankles, fluid around the heart (CHF)...

  • I was raw for 5 months and had no problem staying that way, then I stopped Celtic salt. In just a few days I craved SAD food. I could not stop eating the pizza and anything else I could get my hands on because I live with SAD eaters. This went on for three days and it occured to me that salt was the thing I changed so I began to use it again. The next few days I had no problem staying raw. I just must need my salt so that is where I am staying.

  • mewmewmintmewmewmint Raw Newbie

    TheRawDance: no he just said salt in general

  • Can you link me to the article please?

  • I never used to like salty things or add salt to my food but then I had a really bad experience – I had some digestive issues which started slowly along with decreased energy and not feeling well, and resulted in serious dehydration and loss of electrolytes, and a few days later I got really intense cravings for salt. To the point where I left work to go to the store to buy a bag of salty tortilla chips (at least they were plain corn chips haha) and ate the whole thing not out of hunger but because I NEEDED salt. I went on a 2 day salty binge of chips, tomatoes, and adding massive amounts of salt to my guacamole and even the raw chocolate sauce I make. I think going raw really cut all forms of hidden salt out of my diet that I might have been getting before without thinking about it. Since then I have made a conscious effort to get a little bit of salt in my diet and I have felt much better. I think salt in small amounts can be a good thing, in a natural form of course.

  • bananaboybananaboy Raw Superstar

    I can’t believe people are even asking this question? It has been well known for more than 50 years that sodium chloride (table salt) is very bad for the body. Salt causes hypertension, osteoporosis, and significantly increases the risk of stomach cancer among many other problems. People who are addicted to this poison believe it makes foods taste better. But what it has done is numb the sense of taste making it almost impossible to appreciate the true flavors of fresh raw natural fruits and vegetables. We get all the sodium (not sodium chloride) we need in raw fruit, leafy greens, nuts and seeds. The human body cannot process any inorganic mineral into organic material. Only plants can do that.

    This is what Herbert Shelton, the father of natural hygiene says about table salt… “Salt is a deadly poison, a terrible abusive irritant to human tissue. This can be confirmed by anyone by sniffing salt water and experiencing the terrible burning sensation as the delicate sinus membranes are irritated, by putting salt water into the eyes and experiencing the burning sensation while observing the rush of blood to the eyes to protect their delicate membranes (bloodshot), by putting salt on an open wound and experiencing the terrible burning sensation as the tissue is irritated and destroyed, or by drinking a concentrated salt solution and experiencing vomiting as the body acts to repel this foreign and toxic substance.

    Salt is not synthesized or processed in any way in the body and serves no useful purpose. It enters as sodium chloride, it is stored as sodium chloride, it is excreted as sodium chloride. It leaves a trail of destruction from the time it enters until the time it can be excreted.

    When excessive salt (that which the body cannot immediately excrete) is deposited everywhere in the fluid medium of the billions of living body cells causing extreme irritation, injury and death to the cells, the cells send forth a desperate SOS signal and the person gets thirsty and drinks a lot of water. This water is carried by the blood and deposited in the tissue fluids to dilute the devastating effects. This results in excessive body fluids, edema.

    The trail of distress, destruction and tragedy is total, having adversely affected every cell in the body. All surviving bodily defense mechanisms are activated to eliminate the salt through tears, sweat, urine, and mucus (excreted in the digestive and respiratory tracts).”

    Nuff said!

  • Table salt has been linked to osteoporosis jgfergus??? Jeeze, I had not heard that one yet. How depressing.

    What about salt rocks from the sea??? What’s your take on that?

    We do need sodium, especially for electrolyte balance but we don’t need crap forms… You are correc that we can naturally get our sodium balance from whole foods. What is your opinion on mineral rich sea salt??? to jgfergus

  • queenfluffqueenfluff Raw Newbie

    A life without salt? Oh the horror! As long as I am around, the pink salt company will be in business!

    Yes, table salt is bad. Raw sea salt is good. The water in our bodies is closest to that of sea water. Obviously there is salt in the body. When you swim in the ocean, your body will absorb some of the salt water through your skin too. I feel better if I have salt. Sorry but I do.

    Table salt has no nutritional value or use to the body. It is toxic. Sea salts are full of good minerals that your body needs. Please don’t confuse this.

    There is even a book on how the lack of enough water and salt is what is missing from our bodies and how it is cures for many prblems.

    David Wolfe put salt in his water to add the minerals.

  • CarmentinaCarmentina Raw Newbie

    Himalayan salt, by the way, is NOT sea salt! It comes from quarries in the mountains of the Himalayas. A great sea salt would be Celtic. I disagree that all salt is bad – table salt no doubt. But Hymalayan and Celtic are another thing. Moderation is the key.

  • springleafspringleaf Raw Newbie

    Ur, sorry to disapoint, but himalayan salt is sea salt, the himalayas are mountains formed when two continental shelves collided and pushed up together, between the shelves used to be a sea, which dryed out, this is where the salt layer comes from. However, because all this happened millions of years ago, before pollution upset our seas and oceans, the salt is free from polutants. :-)

  • Mono meals for me are just eating one food for that particular meal. So, perhaps I will have a bowl full of cucumbers for lunch – and that’s it. This allows my mouth to really experience the taste of the cucumbers. It’s a really nice feeling.

    I don’t add salt to any of the recipes on this site. I just leave it out. It takes a while to get used to it but if you stick to it – you will see that eventually you won’t miss it. Well, at least that’s what happened for me. Having said that, if I prepare food for other people I will generally put a little salt (sea salt). Now that I’ve typed this, I don’t know why I do it – they can always add their own. Hmmmmm.

    I don’t know if I would say that flavors of food improve exactly – they just become more defined because my mouth is no longer dealing with the salt taste.

    jgfergus took the time that I did not have to write out the reasons for no salt in my world (thanks jgfergus) but clearly some people don’t feel this strongly about it.

  • bananaboybananaboy Raw Superstar

    Sorry folks…table salt, sea salt, Himalayan salt, etc. are one and the same…sodium chloride. An inorganic mineral that the body cannot use. It enters the body as a crude inorganic salt, it is absorbed unchanged, goes the rounds of general circulation as an unassimilated salt, and is finally excreted as such.

    Salt is a poison. You can disagree if you like but that may show that you have been brainwashed by the herd of morons masquerading as nutrition experts and like most of western society, are addicted to it.

    If salt were are true food, you could make a meal of it with no ill effects. Have a bowl of salt for dinner tonight. You won’t need to worry about what to have for breakfast tomorrow.

    Everyone knows that drinking salt water will kill you.

    Consume salt if you like, but do so at your peril!

  • I think you’re over-reacting a bit, Fergus. People have been using salt for a long time, and while many of the diseases you listed can be linked to salt, its not the salt itself that’s at the root of the cause, its the amount combined with other factors of living in the modern world. All of those diseases are increasing in frequency. If it was salt itself that caused them, the percentage would stay the same, not increase like it is today. I’ll agree that we need to cut back on salt intake, but there’s no reason to fully eliminate salt from one’s diet.

  • If you cut out salt, which has a needed element added (Iodine) what can you use to replace the iodine?

  • Annabelle77Annabelle77 Raw Newbie

    The Medical jury is out on this one… many medical researchers are concluding that it’s not that bad afterall… here is something to read

    http://www.rense.com/general65/salt.htm

    I was saying this today in another post that too much water and too little salt causes a potentially deadly state called Hyponatremia… here’s some info on it…

    In medicine, hyponatremia (British: hyponatraemia) is an electrolyte disturbance (disturbance of the salts in the blood) in which the sodium (Natrium in Latin) concentration in the plasma is too low (hypo in Greek; in this case, below 135 mmol/L).

    Severe or rapidly progressing hyponatremia can result in swelling of the brain (cerebral edema), and the symptoms of hyponatremia are mainly neurological. Hyponatremia is most often a complication of other medical illnesses in which either fluids rich in sodium are lost (for example because of diarrhea or vomiting), or excess water accumulates in the body at a higher rate than it can be excreted (for example in polydipsia or syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone, SIADH). There may also be spurious hyponatremia (pseudohyponatremia) if other substances expand the serum and dilute the sodium (for example, high blood levels of fats in hypertriglyceridemia or high blood sugar in hyperglycemia).

    The diagnosis of hyponatremia relies mainly on the medical history, clinical examination and blood and urine tests. Treatment can be directed at the cause (for example, corticosteroids in Addison’s disease) or involve restriction of water intake, intravenous saline or drugs like diuretics, demeclocycline, urea or vaptans (antidiuretic hormone receptor antagonists). Correcting the salt and fluid balance needs to occur in a controlled fashion, as too rapid correction can lead to severe complications such as heart failure or central pontine myelinolysis

    I am a long distance runner, and its a dangerous problem…drinking too much water while sweating and not replacing salt CAN KILL YOU.

  • achin70achin70 Raw Newbie

    I agree that sodium chloride, or table salt, is bad for you. However, the live salts like Celtic Salt and Himalayan Salt are not sodium chloride. They do have sodium and chloride, but also a host of other minerals as well. So it can really help your body to become remineralized. You can tell if a salt has been heated by how it tastes in your mouth. If you get a dry feeling, then it’s likely been heated.

    Human beings are essentially bags of salt and water, or in other words, a skin-encapsulated ocean. Salt helps to build membrane potential, and it’s synergistic with sodium and potassium. Himalayan Salt, and possibly, Celtic Salt, does not raise blood pressure. In fact, Himalayan Salt has been shown to lower blood pressue within 15 minutes of consumption.

    All land animals seek out salt. Chimps, for example, will seek it out, hoard it, and guard it jealously. Salt helps to hold water in the body, so it’s esp. important in a hot climate where you are sweating a lot. It is also considered an antioxidant because it is rich in extra electrons.

    Both Celtic Salt and Himalayan Salt are excellent. Celtic Salt is fresher and more live than Himalayan Salt, it has 12 minerals not found in Himalayan Salt, and it is four times as concentrated in minerals. However, since Celtic Salt is sundried, there is a chance of a small amount of mold developing during the drying process. Himalayan Salt is not as fresh or as mineral-rich, but you don’t need to worry about any mold issues. Just make sure the salt is coming from the veins of the mines. If it comes from the veins, it vibrates at a higher frequency (life force). The Original brand I believe is certified as coming from the veins of the mines, and it is the Himalayan salt that has the most research behind it.

    Hope this helps! :)

  • MeditatingMeditating Raw Newbie

    It has always been my understanding we need salt in order to keep our electrolytes in balance. Probably nothing near the amount that is normally consumed and certainly not refined salt, which I read started as an industrialized waste product that was spiked with iodine and touted as an improvement over real salt in order to make a product out of it..

    The historical event that makes me recall the human need for salt was the Salt March led by Gandhi. The british were taxing salt and people were no longer able to collect and make their own at the shoreline due to the tax. Many of India’s poor died as a result. Gandhi saw this tax as most cruel and oppressive of the poor because salt was freely provided by the earth and essential to life.

  • Again…. I’ve got no problems with personal beliefs, but when people start spewing lies, untruths, and propaganda, that’s where I have problems.

    Studies have been done that show that too much salt is bad. We know this, seems that no one has qualms about it. BUT, studies have also shown that inadequate salt intake is just as harmful to your health as too much salt (see “The effect of salt deficiency in man on the volume of the extracellular fluids, and on the composition of sweat, saliva, gastric juice and cerebrospinal fluid”, R. A. McCance).

    So no, salt is not a poison. Do you need to add it to your food? If you are moderate about it, you should be fine, especially if you’re young (it has also been shown that young people have virtually no negative effects from too much salt). If it tastes good, do it!

    Lastly, here’s a good site, while biased, that shows health benefits and problems that are associated with salt (I like it because it gives full references with links so you can look at it yourself). http://www.saltinstitute.org/28.html

  • I want to crack a joke about two peanuts that walk into a bar and one was assaulted but I won’t because I don’t want to get in trouble for being silly. Sorry everyone.

    PS. Rawry, you seem to be good here because you know a lot of knowledge. Welcome here, I am new here too.

  • Hi Beetboy, welcome to the site. Its pretty good here, but you’ve got to keep some things in proper perspective. I wouldn’t mind seeing about being a mod so I can delete erroneous posts. Anyway, thanks for the welcome and back at you.

  • achin70achin70 Raw Newbie

    NoBones: You can use sea veggies to get your iodine, esp. kelp granules!

Sign In or Register to comment.