Just Kick the Salt Habit

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Just Kick the Salt Habitby multiple authorshttp://www.living-foods.com/articles/kicksalt.html

This article is about Salt. Yes, this includes normal " iodizedsalt " , and " Sea Salt " either refined or unrefined. Most people intoraw foods that are serious about their health do not consume salt in

their diet. If you want a salty flavor to foods, you can add a saltyvegetable such as salcornia, celery or try using some seavegetables.Sodium chloride (salt) consumption. One is that Stone-Age men and

women did not consume supplemental dietary sodium chloride (salt),which like protein can also cause increased calciuresis (calciumexcretion) [Nordin et al. 1993] and loss of bone mass [Devine et al.1995]. Because the kidney must obligatorily excrete calcium with

sodium [Nordin et al. 1993], high levels of dietary sodium are nowgenerally recognized to be the single greatest dietary risk factorfor osteoporosis [Matkovic et al. 1995; Devine et al. 1995;Cappuccio 1996]. It should go without saying that in this

context, " high " levels of dietary sodium are simply normal levels inWestern societies.Paul Bragg N.D. Ph.D. " How to keep your heart healthy and fit " THE TRUTH ABOUT SALTWould you use sodium, a caustic alkali, to season your food? Or

chlorine, apoisonous gas? " Ridiculous questions, " you say. " Nobody would befoolhardyenough to do that. " Of course not. But the shocking truth is that most people do so...because they

don't know that these powerful chemicals constitute the inorganiccrystalinecompound�salt.For centuries, the expression " salt of the earth " has been used as acatch-allphrase to designate something good and essential. Nothing could be

moreerroneous. For that harmless product that you shake into your foodevery day mayactually bury you. Consider these startling facts:1. SALT IS NOT A FOOD! There is no more justification for its

culinary usethan there is for potassium chloride, calcium chloride, bariumchloride, or anyother harmful chemical to season food.2. Salt cannot be digested, assimilated, or utilized by the body.

Salt has nonutritional value! SALT HAS NO VITAMINS! NO ORGANIC MINERALS! NONUTRIENTS OF ANY KIND! Instead, it is positively harmful and maybring on troubles in the kidneys, bladder, heart, arteries, veins,

and blood vessels. Salt may waterlog the tissues, causing adropsical condition.3. Salt may act as a heart poison. It also increases theirritability of thenervous system.4. Salt acts to rob calcium from the body and attacks the mucous

liningthroughout the entire gastrointestinal tract.SALT IS NOT ESSENTIAL TO LIFEIt is frequently claimed that salt is essential for the support oflife.However, there is no information available to substantiate this

viewpoint. The truth is that entire races (primitive peoples) useabsolutely no salt today and have not used it throughout theirentire history. If salt were essential to life, these races wouldhave become extinct long ago. The fact that they are not only alive

but have far better health than other races, would seem to indicatethat the supposed " necessity " of salt is a commercially-inspiredinvention or merely the product of the imagination.WHAT SALT DOES TO YOUR STOMACH

An important objection to salt is the fact that it interferes withthe normal digestion of food. Pepsin, an enzyme found in thehydrochloric acid of the stomach, is essential for the digestion ofproteins. When salt is used, only 50% as much pepsin is secreted as

would otherwise be the case. Obviously, under such conditions,digestion of protein foods is incomplete or too slow. The result isexcessive putrefaction of protein and, in some instances, gas anddigestive distress.

THE SALT HABIT IS A DEADLY HABIT�BREAK IT!People undoubtedly would not add inorganic salt to their food ifthey were nevertaught to do so in the first place. The taste for salt is anacquired one. When salt is eliminated from the diet for a short

time, the craving for it ceases. It is only during the first fewweeks after table salt is discontinued that it is really missed...after that, abstinence is of little difficulty. In fact, many of my

health students... who have broken the deadly salt habit... write methat NOW they cannot stand salted foods! When someone serves themsalted food, it gives them an abnormal thirst for liquids.Harvey Diamond

" Fit For Life " Q. Just how harmful is table salt?A. The Egyptians used salt for embalming. Let's take the hint! Thisyear Americans will consume five hundred million pounds of salt.That's a lot of embalming. Salt is everywhere and in everything from

pet food to baby food. Salt is a major contributing factor to theincreasing incidence of hypertension, or high blood pressure, inthis country. It is so caustic to the sensitive inner tissues of thebody that water is retained to neutralize its acidic effect. This

adds weight to the body. Overuse of salt can contribute to a severeaffliction of the kidneys called nephritis. " Health Magic Through Chlorophyll " Dr. Bernard Jensen:SALT�Table salt should be dropped from the diet. We do not need it

when we have plenty of greens everyday. To change from it, usevegetized salt purchased in your health food store. Vegetableconcentrates in powdered form and herbs are also excellentseasonings.Dr. Dicky in South Africa found that he could trade for anything he

wanted from the Pygmies with salt. However, when he began givingthem plenty of green vegetables, their desire for salt lessened andhe could no longer bargain with salt alone because it had lost itsvalue to them. Still further, we find that deer are not attracted to

salt licks when they have the greens of the field. It is during thedry grass season, when the chlorophyll is lacking, that they desirethis salt. Liquid chlorophyll contains the most potent, vital cell

salts a person can take into the body. When we crave salt, I feel itis because the body doesn't have all the elements it should havefrom these greens.Henry Lindlahr " The Practice of Nature Cure "

Vinegar and Condiments Injurious. Green vegetables are mostbeneficial when eaten raw with a dressing of lemon juice and oliveoil. Avoid the use of vinegar. It is a product of fermentation, anda powerful preservative which regards digestion as well as

fermentation, both processes being very much the same in character.Lemon juice being a live vegetable product, rich in vitamins,promotes digestion.Do not use pepper, salt or sugar on fruits and vegetables at the

table. They maybe used sparingly in cooking, . Strong spices and condiments aremore or lessirritating to . the mucous linings of the intestinal tract. Theygradually benumb the nerves of taste. At first they stimulate the

digestive organs, but like all other stimulants, produce in timeweakness and atrophy. Fruits and vegetables are rich in all themineral salts in the live, organic form, and therefore the additionof inorganic mineral table salt is not only superfluous but

positively harmful.John T. Richter " Nature The Healer " Q. Would it not be all right to put a little salt on one's food ifit seemed to taste " flat " otherwise?A. Table salt, and all other salts except those found in their

organic stages in fruits and vegetables, are inorganic substanceswhich cannot be assimilated by the body and must be discarded by thebloodstream at the earliest opportunity.Usually the salt is deposited in the joints, particularly the knees,

elbows, ankles, wrists, and the like, resulting later in arthritisand rheumatism. It makes no difference whether you have gotten yoursalt in the form of the table variety, or as saleratus (bichlorideof soda) in hot biscuits, or Epsom salts prescribed for internal use

in cases of constipation; all are productive of the same injuriousresults. What is the first symptom of salt deposits in the joints?Do they crack when you do a knee bend? If so, your joints are

commencing to become dry due to the salt deposits having absorbedall the synovial fluid which acts as a lubricant in those regions.Salt has a tremendous attraction for water and all other liquids. Nowonder doctors prescribe innumerable glasses of water daily so that

their patients may to some extent satisfy the incessant craving forliquid caused by the salt they are eating. Remember that salt maydissolve in water and in the saliva of the mouth, but it willrecrystallize within a very short time and under no circumstances

will it be absorbed into the bodily structure. It will collectwherever there is room for it to be deposited,but it will no more be absorbed than sand is absorbed by the gearsinto which you may have thrown it. Salt, in its effect, is like that

of sand in gears; it irritates and slowly but surely destroys. Ourbodies are wonderful machines, self-oiling, provided we furnish thefood out of which the oil may be manufactured and stop abusing them.You ask, " Do we need salt? Is not salt present in the healthy

bloodstream? " True, but you must get your salt from the vegetable or fruit, whichin turns gets it from the earth. Your bloodstream will not requirechecking provided you eat natural, uncooked foods. Nature will take

from these exactly the right amount of salt which is needed, and nomore. In the first place, it is organic, and therefore usable in thebuilding up of the body; in the second place, as mentioned, therewill never be an excess of salts no matter how much live food you

may eat.Hygienic ReviewVol. XXXIV October, 1973 No. 7SALT EATING PERNICIOUSHerbert M. SheltonIn their effort to supply a basis for the salt eating habit men whocall themselves scientists uncritically repeat the popular folklore

that wild animals seek out " salt licks " to obtain salt. Salt eatingis an acquired habit and serves no useful purpose. The practice ofeating salt has never been universal.Thoreau says he gave up salt eating when he found that the Indians

did not use it. It is highly probable that he was influenced in thisas much by Graham as by the Indians.In his Eskimo Life, Stefansson, the famous arctic explorer,says: " After you have been a month or so without salt you cease to

long for it, and after six months I have found the taste of meatboiled in salt water distinctly disagreeable. No Eskimo will touchsalt if he can help doing so. Many other people have existed forages without taking salt.

One who has been accustomed to adding salt to his food findsunsalted food dull, flat, insipid and tasteless until his sense oftaste has regained its normal tone. Robinson Crusoe had no salt and,at first, he found food unappetizing. The giant crawfish which he

caught were unpalatable.Naturalists inform us that in some parts of the earth, certainanimals, such as the elephant, African antelopes, etc., do frequentand lick certain places.Analyses of these " licks " show that sodium chloride (common table

salt) is frequently lacking in them. The different " licks " containdifferent minerals, such as phosphorus, manganese, copper, sulphate,magnesium, nickel and iron. As the " licking " process is not

universal, but is confined to a few restricted places in the earth,and as the animals can make no constructive use of the elementsexisting in the " licks " , the licking habit, where observed, isprobably in the nature of a perversion. I have been assured that

deer sometimes lick the salt flats of Utah, but here, also, the saltin these flats is not all sodium chloride. As the flats arecertainly not within reach of all the animal population of America

and, as " licks " are not found elsewhere, we need not take seriouslythe myth that animals supply their alleged need for salt byvisiting " salt licks " . We cannot determine the normal needs ofanimal life by recourse to the rare practices of a few animals in

those extremely infrequent places where mineral outcroppings exist.We know that animals do not mine Salt and do not ship it greatdistances to supply their alleged needs, as we do. Science is theever-subservient handmaiden of commercialism and we should not be

surprised by the fact that the scientists can find and have foundjurisdiction, even if only fictional, for all the practices that arefostered by the commercial world for profit.Before the coming of the white man to this continent most Indians

knew not the taste of salt, and the few that had and employed salt,did not add it to their foods. Even today in parts of Alaska,Canada, Mexico and South America, the Indians still manifest adistaste for this substance. It is also well known among students of

the subject that the Bedouin people regard the use of salt asridiculous. Great numbers of instances of this kind, some of themreaching back into prehistory and involving great numbers ofgenerations, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that man does not

require the addition of salt (sodium chloride) to his food or to betaken in drink or as pills. Great numbers of tribes in tropical anddesert regions have existed for ages without taking salt, provingthat we do not require it to resist heat. Indeed, the supposed need

for salt in hot weather and in hot climates is a very recent modernnotion.Among the Indians there were a few tribes along our western coastthat had andemployed salt. They administered it as a magic potion, not as a part

of their daily diet. Their medicine men employed it in their sorceryto drive out devils from the bodies of the sick. It was notadministered internally. Could its " use " by other parts of the world

and at other periods of man's existence have originated in the sameway? This is most likely. I cannot offer any strong support of thisview. In view of the most probable origin of the " use " of all other

condiments, there is reason to believe that the Indian medicine manwas not the first to introduce salt in his sorcery. Its " use " antedates recorded history, but, it is a fact that whole tribes and

even whole nations of men during this vast period of time, have notknown the taste of salt. This is due more to the fact that themedicine men of these tribes had not discovered itthan to any credit that belongs to them for not introducing it to

man. I once thought that it may have come into general " use " amongthose people who do take it, as a result of eating foods that hadbeen salted to preserve them, man having, by some accident,discovered that the addition of quantities of salt to flesh and

certain other foods would preserve these. At present it seems morelikely that salt was added to these foods, originally, not as apreservative, but to impart its magical virtues to these foods. Itsantibiotic (preservative) qualities were thus made known.

The mountains of facts of contemporary animal life and of thehistory of man, which prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that salteating is not essential to life, even that the eating of thisinorganic mineral is definitely injurious, are ignored by our so-

called scientists who continue to urge us to take this substancewith our foods. Only in a few states of disease are " salt-free " diets advised by physicians and not all physicians are agreed thatsuch diets are beneficial. Once a mistake becomes a part of

established science, it is next to impossible to weed it out.Science does not like to admit its mistakes; it does not like tosurrender its pet illusions. It is as cock-sure that we need sodium

chloride in the form of ordinary table salt as it is that we musthave flesh foods. People who desire to live rationally will simplyhave to ignore thedecrepit old hag and go on ahead of her.Trall gave it as his opinion of salt as a " dietetic " article

that " it is worse than useless-common opinion, and the frequentassertions of medical books to the contrary notwithstanding. " Hepointed out that the " free use of salt irritates the mouth, throat,

and stomach, causing thirst and fever, and provoking unnaturalappetite, while it loads the circulating fluids with a foreigningredient, which the excretory organs must labor inordinately toget rid of. "

In his day the antiseptic quality of salt was much to the fore andthis quality was often adduced as evidence in favor of its use.Trall declared that " this is precisely the quality that renders itmost unfit for nutritive purposes. "

There is no doubt of the need for various salts by the animalorganism, but these must be taken as organic salts, as synthesizedby fruits and vegetables; not as inorganic, as taken from the sea orsalt mines. Sodium chloride, formerly called muriate of soda (this

term was particularly applied to sea salt, the word muria meaningbrine) is but one salt; we need several. Why do we make so much adoabout our supposed need for one salt and ignore all the others? Thesalts of calcium, phosphorus, silica, iodine, magnesium, etc. are

removed from our foods by the milling and processing of foods and byvarious cooking processes.Were the organic salts left in our foods, and these are the onlysalts that are usable by the animal body, we would not feel

the " need " to add sodium chloride to our foods to make thempalatable. Certainly the addition of this salt to our foodstuffsdoes not compensate for the deficiency of the other salts that our

regular diets present.The use of salt imposes considerable exertion upon the body ineliminating it, for it is not readily excreted. It tends toaccumulate in the body so that the organism finds it necessary to

retain within itself a superfluous quantity of water to dilute theretained salt and thus defend itself against this substance.A hidden edema (one that is often not so hidden) is the result ofsalt intake, giving one a body-weight that is composed of a

considerable amount of water rather than healthy flesh.The increased flow of saliva, gastric juice and mucus that followsthe; taking of salt, as well as of other condiments, is due to theeffort to dilute and wash away the irritant substance, the juices

containing no digestive enzymes. Instead of accelerating thedigestive processes, as is commonly believed, the use of suchsubstances retards digestion. Their use, under any and allcircumstances and conditions, is always an evil.

All fruits and vegetables in their natural state abound in organicsalts of various kinds, and a diet composed of these substances willamply supply the body with all needed salt.No deficiency of mineral salts can arise if one eats freely of

uncooked fruits and vegetables, nor will one 'feel " the " need " forthe addition of table salt to his food. These salts of fruits andvegetables are in forms that may be utilized by the animal organism

in the building of tissue.They are foods, not irritants-- Diana Gonzalez

Nothing wastes more energy than worrying - the longer a problem is carried, the heavier it gets. Don't take things too seriously - live a life of serenity, not a life of regrets. -Unknown