By Dr. Matsen

If you look at any physiology textbook, in the kidney chapter you will see that sodium chloride (NaCl) plays a key role in the function of those precious organs. It is even more important in the production of hydrochloric acid. In fact, your body contains about four ounces of sodium that maintain your internal fluids in a state that is very similar to ocean water and this is absolutely critical for your body to function. If sodium chloride is so important, why have we been told not to use it, that it creates high blood pressure, and that it’s bad for us?

The reason is that the sodium chloride needed by your body is indeed precious but the sodium chloride delivered into your body in the average everyday diet is a highly processed, industrial grade sodium chloride that is as much a toxic irritant as it is beneficial. Common table salt, even sea salt, has had valuable buffering minerals removed and sold on the world industrial mineral market. The more common minerals removed from true ocean salt are sulfur, zinc, magnesium, iron, manganese, copper, calcium, and silicon. The trace minerals removed during salt processing include strontium, boron, fluorine, argon, lithium, rubidium, germanium, scandium, gallium, and many more.

You might hope to get some of these scarcer trace minerals from your diet but foods grown on industrial farm plots are unlikely to contain such minerals because the fertilizers that are added to the land are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Repetitive use of these three compounds without the addition of trace minerals soon depletes the trace minerals from the soil. Organic gardening and farming has taken this into consideration and trace minerals are being added back to the soil.

However, since all soil minerals will end up in the sea, this is still the most reliable source of the myriad trace minerals that we need. Simply evaporating salt water leaves these salts in the perfect balance your body needs. Fortunately, it is still possible to buy true unprocessed sea salt. In my clinic we go through cases of sea salt which has been harvested from the Grand Saline area of the Caribbean Sea. The working of the salt flats is done by artisan workers using wooden tools. No metal is allowed to touch the salt and no chemicals are added.

Commercial table salt has iodine added to it to prevent thyroid goiter. This form of iodine is not useable by your body but fortunately your thyroid can convert it into a more useable form. Other parts of your body that also need iodine don’t have this ability to convert crude iodine into a more organic form.

Female breast tissue, for example, need protein-bound iodine which protects from estrogen over-stimulation. This iodine is found in sea fish, sea plants and in the coarser sea salt crystals which retain a trace of sea water that contains iodine.

So salt is not just “sodium chloride,” the evil white chemical that is destroying people’s health. True unprocessed sea salt is a subtle blend of crucial nutrients integral to health, especially for those who eat vegetable products because their high potassium levels make salt intake even more important. In early farming society, salt was so valuable that wages were paid in it, thus originating the word “salary.” In some places, salt was literally worth its weight in gold. Just make sure you get your money’s worth by getting the “whole” product.