Choose Your Salt Right

When cravings set in, our mouth starts watering and all our senses search here and there for that tasty and spicy savoury or “chatpata khana” but while putting anything in your body it is crucial to understand the salt being used.

There is a lot of confusion about salt and its effect on health and the most common belief is to reduce salt intake as much as possible. Plainly put, nowadays it is considered as a necessary evil – necessary for our taste but evil for health especially hypertension and heart diseases.

But that’s not true!

Rock salt (Saindhav Namak) /unrefined sea salt contains a broad spectrum of trace elements in almost similar ratios as found in the human blood! This includes potassium and magnesium which is crucial for the health and helps metabolise sodium better. These work in synergy with sodium to regulate water balance, nerve and muscle impulses.

Salt is a critical requirement of our body.

However, Rock salt is considered good even for kidney patients as it has the best sodium-potassium ratios.

So we can perhaps infer that refined salts may not be as good but Rock salt or Sainthav salt is much better and surely required.

How much salt we need to consume

Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend limiting sodium to less than 2,300 milligrams a day. However, this has to be correlated with our weather conditions. Excess sweating will surely lead to more salt loss and hence a higher intake may be required.

Kinds of salt available

1. Table salt – processed and mostly sodium chloride

2. Sea salt – usually comes in its completely natural form

3. Rock salt – widely used by health professionals, spas and individuals who are interested in utilizing natural products to heal the body and relax the mind. Rock Salt is approved for use on the Keto and Paleo Diets and contains 84 elements & Iron. The high mineral content of the rock salt crystals comes in varying shades of pink to deep reds.

4. Celtic salt, grey in colour also contains 84 different live elements

It is increasingly becoming difficult to obtain the much-desired trace elements from the foods we eat due to the lack of nutrient-rich soil. However, natural salts like rock salt and Celtic sea salts contain these trace elements and not just sodium chloride.

By using these salts you not only optimise the sodium levels as required by your body but also help you maintain the sodium-potassium ratios.

Food is the biggest gift to mankind created by man out of the bounties of nature. Eat to satisfy your taste buds, not just stomach. Now eat savoury food without guilt - Just Choose your salt and ingredients carefully.