Sea Salt vs.Table Salt. Does It Really Matter?

You’ve probably heard that a diet high in sodium is unhealthy because it is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, etc. That’s partially true

Processed foods have very high levels of sodium, and a diet high in sodium actually leads to sodium dependence by your body. This is why you crave salty foods; just like a smoker craves the nicotine in a cigarette.

Here’s some good news. Breaking a salt habit is not that hard and eating the right kind of salt, in moderation, can bevery beneficial to your health. I’m talking about natural salt from the earth with a balanced trace mineral content that your body can use.

The dirt on table salt:

First off, salt is Sodium Chloride, (NaCl) a compound made up of sodium and chlorine. Remember the periodic table from high school chemistry class? Me neither.

Anyway, table salt is refined. That means it’s highly-processed. It is bleached, filtered, and stripped of other naturally occurring trace minerals. Then chemicals are added to keep the salt from absorbing water and clumping.

Why is this necessary? Glad you asked! It isn’t. But years ago salt producers decided that bright white salt was prettier than off-white salt; and that consumers prefer pretty white salt. So they started bleaching it (usually with toxic chlorine that remains in the salt). They also add anti-caking agents to increase salt’s shelf life. The problem is the chemicals added to keep salt from absorbing moisture on the shelf interfere with one of salt’s main functions: to regulate hydration in your body.

Sodium chloride table salt is highly concentrated, denatured, and toxic to you.

Your body retains water to protect itself and your cells release water to help dilute, neutralize, and break down the salt. This loss of water dehydrates and weakens cells, and can even cause them to die prematurely. Refined salt along with denatured fats like margarine and processed butter can cause red blood cells to clump, reducing their ability to absorb oxygen and carry it to certain cells in the body.

Natural Sea Salt is far superior to chemically-treated iodized table salts as it contains all 92 trace minerals, and it’s only 84% Sodium Chloride while table salt is almost 98%.

In fact natural sea salt has a very similar mineral content to human blood!

There are a lot of salts out there, but I prefer natural, un-bleached sea salt.

Celtic (or South Indian Ocean) Sea Salt is a mineral-rich natural salt hand-harvested by salt farmers in Brittany (or Nusa Penida near Bali). Their farming method preserves the purity and balance of ocean minerals in the salt.

Sea water contains natural trace minerals such as ionized sodium, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and selenium, plus trace elements such as copper, iron, zinc, manganese, and chromium. The human body uses these minerals and trace elements to create electrolytes, and maintain bodily fluids.

Celtic (or South Indian Ocean) Sea Salt contains a higher percentage of mineral-dense natural brine (sea water). This naturally lowers the amount of sodium chloride found in sea salts. Sea salt is recommended by Doctors and Natural Health Practitioners around the world.

I challenge you to do a taste test: sea salt then table salt. You’ll be amazed.

This is such an easy way to improve your diet. You should definitely make the switch. Sea salt can also be taken in large therapeutic doses to help your body detoxify. My wife did it as part of a protocol to heal her hypothyroid which we learned about in a book called Salt Your Way To Health by Dr. David Brownstein.

What about Himalayan salt? It’s definitely better than table salt, but Celtic Sea Salt has a much higher trace mineral content (17-23%) than Himalayan crystal salt (4%). That’s why we use it. And I’ll close with some salty trivia: Salt is the only rock we eat and it was once so valuable it served as currency. Salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. If that sounds interesting, you might like the book Salt: A World History