Salt has become a delicacy, gracing the shelves of many specialty markets with different flavors and grains. It is one more item that can be relatively cheap to purchase or mysteriously expensive. It is used to take stains out of clothes or keep you from slipping on icy pavement. Notwithstanding, salt is mainly it is used as a food seasoning. There is a general health assumption that all salt is bad for you. After some research, I’ve found that the relationship between salt and health is actually more complicated than that!
Refined vs. Unrefined Salt
The most important fact to know when picking a salt is that there is refined salt and there is unrefined salt. Commercially refined salt is often harvested from salt mines in the form of brine first. Brine is a highly concentrated solution of water and salt. To extract the salt from the brine, companies first use chemicals such as sulfuric acid or chlorine to extract the minerals, which they then sell separately. Then, the water is evaporated from the brine using a combination of high compression and heat, which alters the molecular structure of the salt. Lastly, the salt is dried and packaged.1
Aside from adding taste to food, refined salt is a useless ingredient because salt companies strip the salt of the minerals that your body needs and sells them to other companies. This begs the question: why is salt refined? While refined salt does not benefit the consumer, it certainly benefits the producer. Since all the minerals are removed from refined salt, it can sit on the grocery store shelf forever, maximizing the producer’s profits. Another benefit of the refining process for producers is that producers can harvest salt from a polluted area and then the refining process will remove toxins that may be in the salt.2
While refined salt is mostly composed of just sodium (39%) and chloride (60%), unrefined salt contains all the necessary minerals, reflecting where it has been harvested. Beneficial minerals in unrefined salt include magnesium, potassium, iron, and iodine. Magnesium and potassium help boost the body’s immune system. Iodine prevents thyroid swelling and is also added to unrefined salt. However, it only composes 0.01% of unrefined salt, which is too insignificant an amount to prevent thyroid swelling or provide for the body’s general iodine needs.3 Additionally, foods with lower mineral contents acidify the body’s pH. Unrefined salt helps maintain the body’s natural pH, which is 7.2.4 The pH scale measures the acidity level of a substance from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral, 0 being the most acidic, and 14 being the most basic or alkaline.5
Unrefined Salt Options
Given that refined salt is an unnatural product and thus difficult for the human body to digest, here are a few of the best unrefined salts to incorporate into your daily diet! The three most popular types are:
- Celtic Sea Salt,
- Himalayan Pink Salt, and
- Real Salt
Celtic Sea Salt is harvested off the coast of France, Himalayan Pink Salt is harvested from ancient seabeds in Pakistan, and Real Salt is harvested from an ancient seabed in Redmond, Utah.6 All three of these salts contain more or less the same number (over 60!) of essential, trace minerals. However, since unrefined salt is a whole food product, the amount of minerals varies slightly from salt to salt, and even varies from sample to sample. For example, Himalayan Pink Salt usually has more sulfur than Real Salt. For this reason, Real Salt has a sweeter taste.7 With all of the false advertising in the food industry, it is important to make sure that the brand you choose is actually harvesting salt in a sustainable and safe way. Even unrefined salt can have contaminants and toxins in it if harvested the wrong way. For example, HimalaSalt does not use blasting in their mining process in order to avoid explosive residues. Taking cost into consideration, many choose Real Salt. Another benefit of Real Salt is that it is the most local option out of the three for those of us living in North America.8
Salt Sole
Aside from simply eating unrefined salt as a part of your meals, I found a recipe for an elixir of sorts called “sole.” You can use any of the three unrefined salts mentioned above in this recipe. Sole is water that is fully saturated with unrefined salt, which provides a myriad of benefits for your health, such as balancing your body’s pH, balancing blood sugar, hormones, blood pressure, and supporting thyroid and adrenal health.9
To make salt sole, all you need is unrefined salt, a glass jar, and filtered water. First, fill ¼ of a glass jar with the unrefined salt of your choice. Fill the rest of the jar with filtered water. Add a plastic, not metal, lid to the jar, shake, and let sit overnight. If there is some undissolved salt in the jar the next morning, you know the water is fully saturated. If that is the case, add one teaspoon of sole to a glass of room temperature water and drink upon waking. Make sure you never use metal utensils when making your sole.10
When all is said and done, salt is used by most of us to make food taste good, so knowing your salts is a great way to make fresh cooking at home even more rewarding!
