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Salt Warning
by David Klein, Ph.D.

from Living Nutrition (Vibrance) Magazine vol. 18 

http://vibrancemagazine.com/articles/salt.html

Avoid all salt – it’s a toxic, irritating, corrosive, stimulating, enervating and potentially deadly poison. Yes, even Celtic and Himalayan salts are destructive to your body and health – don’t be fooled by marketing hype! These inorganic substances may be trendy but they are not healthful. In addition to sodium chloride, they contain numerous toxic elements including heavy metals, such as aluminum, cadmium, lead and mercury. These wreak havoc in the body, and are very difficult to eliminate.

If you live in a northern region or near the ocean you have probably seen how rock salt and salt spray eats steel members and chrome coatings on automobiles. If you’ve ever had an open flesh wound and exposed it to salt, your senses will have told you how destructive it is. Salt paralyzes the intestinal villi and kills cells – would you knowingly bathe your delicate villi, your arteries, veins and capillaries with such a corrosive solution? Salt brine kills insects and “pickles” vegetables. Do you want to run a solution of that through your brain 24 hours a day? An ounce of salt, taken all at once, spells suicide.

You cannot become healthy if your sense of taste is befuddled by unnatural flavorings. Salt does not bring out the flavor of food; it overpowers your taste buds, deadening them to all sensation other than additional salt, causing unnatural cravings, overeating and beverage guzzling.  

Salt bonds with water, and its toxicity necessitates extra fluid intake. The body’s dilution response causes the cells to become dehydrated, severely impairing health. Salt also throws off the blood’s electrolyte balance (e.g., the sodium to potassium ratio) and acidifies the body, eroding health and impeding healing. Most illness cannot be overcome when salt is part of the diet. The few salt eaters I’ve counseled did not heal their disease conditions until they followed my recommendation of giving up salt--even though their diets were otherwise nearly perfect.

Hypertension (high blood pressure), edema, cardiovascular disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, asthma, arthritis, rheumatism, Alzheimer’s disease, lupus, premenstrual syndrome, gout, cancer and a host of other disease conditions are linked to salt. Can the body handle a little bit of salt? Maybe, but not on a regular basis. Why risk ruining your precious health?

We do need mineral salts–no doubt about it. From where should we get our mineral salts? Plant foods is the natural answer. The liquids from fruits and vegetables contain all of the mineral salts we need, in safe, organic, usable form. For rich, satisfying flavors, obtain produce grown in soil generously mineralized with a rock powder amendment. If possible, grow your own produce, adding such mineral sources as rock powder, azamite, or kelp powder to your compost and soil.

Abstain from salt, clean out, eat whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic tender vegetables plus savory and sweet fruits. Your salt cravings will vanish and unseasoned foods will taste outrageously delicious.