Sunday, January 07, 2007

Rejuvenate Your Life - Salt

With some of my birthday money I treated myself to a book called Rejuvenate Your Life, Recipes for Energy bu Serene Allison. This woman writes all about the benefits of eating a raw, vegan diet. Some of the stuff I've read so far has been amazing. Over the last few years I've been studying a lot about diet, healthy eating etc, and have begun sprouting and growing wheat grass, as well as milling and making my own bread. Every time I read a new book about food I come away horrified by the things that we eat every day, that is quite literally killing us. Today I read about salt.

Everyone knows that too much salt is bad for them. But what I didn't know was that using table salt is like filling your body with poison. The book reads

"Table salt is highly refined and toxic to our system. It has been stripped of every valuable mineral. One horrific part of its refining process is heating the salt to well above 2000 degrees. To render the salt free flowing, they add anti-caking agents that turn the salt purple. Your white table salt is actually purple, but of course bleached for the consumer with a nice touch of a few other chemicals".

Yuck, that is something that I definitely don't want in my system, and certainly don't want to give to my children. A lot of people use sea salt instead, but this too can be misleading.

"Sea salt that is naturally derived is full of necessary minerals and rich in savour. It is necessary for your body and makes everything taste superb. The king of all sea salt is Celtic Salt, which is the most pure and potent. ... It is traditionally hand harvested, unrefined, with no heating, no additives and no preservatives. Good sea salt should be slightly grayish. Beware of cheap sea salts that are glistening white and contain anti-caking agents".

So, even sea salt has been bleached and anti-caked. Did you know that salt should be grey? I didn't. I'll definitely think twice before adding salt to anything now. And I'm going to buy my family some Celtic Salt, as one of the many major changes I will be making to our diet this year. More about that another time...

3 comments:

Lima said...

I didn't know that (well I knew sea salt was better for you, but not why). Think I'll be ditching the table salt too. Thanks for the education :-)

Anonymous said...

I haven't taken salt in my diet for about two years now. Initially food tasted bland but only because I had educated my palate to need it. Now food tastes like food and I don't like salt. My blood pressure has also lowered as a result.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Hazel for letting us know about the 'bad' salt. We do not have much salt, but sometimes it is nice to have a bit of flavour especially as I am not keen on spices. Let us know if you find any other useful tips in your new book Love Jill