Is there such a thing as healthy salt?

I’ve made a big deal here about using Celtic Sea Salt instead of what you can get off the shelf, such as Morton. There might not be any difference between one or the other.

While Celtic has less additives than Morton, the health benefits could be negligible. See this video by Dr. G

Is Miso Healthy?
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-miso-healthy/

After watching this video I posted a question on the NutritionFacts.org site, our goto site for health. While I only got one reply, it’s a good one. It backs up what Dr. G. says, which is that salt — in any form — has sodium and we should be careful about sodium intake. Don’t add salt to food, try to take in as little salt as possible.

Are we going to quit buying Celtic Sea Salt? No. But what we are going to do, is stop acting like we’re getting a free pass by using it instead of Morton.

Here’s my question and the reply

spinsbackwards
February 18th, 2017 1:06 pm
We’ve vegan. If it has a face or a mother, we don’t eat it.
We use Celtic Sea Salt to flavor meals. We don’t buy any other type of salt.
I have no idea what our daily salt intake is, but I’m sure it’s really low.
When I watched this video I got the feeling that all salt is bad – Celtic or otherwise. But then when I looked over the Celtic page, it’s what’s added to salt that’s bad.

We’ve always trusted that Celtic is better than processed salt. No reason to believe otherwise, until now. So I thought I’d post to get some feedback on Celtic Sea Salt versus processed salt.

Thanks,

Reply

Thea
February 18th, 2017 1:43 pm
spinbackwards: I’m glad your daily intake of added salt is low. What’s bad about salt is the sodium in the salt. All salt, regardless of whether if it Celtic or sea or Himalayan etc has the sodium. Hence, it’s good to limit how much you consume. How do I know?

When the analysis is done, it looks like sea/Himalayan salt is nothing more than slightly contaminated salt – contaminated with some good things *and* contaminated with some very harmful things. But none of the contaminated substances are there in such quantities as to likely affect health either way. In other words, there may be a say small amount of iodine, but not enough to make a difference and not enough consistency to be something you will want to rely on. Want to see the actual data? Check out these posts from Darryl:

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/are-sugary-foods-addictive/
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/are-sugary-foods-addictive/

Also, the following site is not a source that I generally consider to contain valid information. But no one is wrong about everything and the author seems to get this one right. She explains the point Darryl raises so well, I’m going to quote it for you:

“They claim that two double-blind studies were done, but no such studies are listed in PubMed. There is no evidence published in peer-reviewed journals that replacing white salt with pink salt makes a shred of difference or leads to any improvement in health.

If you read down the list of minerals, you will notice that it includes a number of radioactive substances like radium, uranium, and polonium. It also includes substances that act as poisons, like thallium. I wouldn’t be worried, since the amounts are so small; but if anyone believes the trace amounts of “good” minerals in Himalayan sea salt are good for you, why not believe the trace amounts of poisons and radioactive elements are bad for you?

The claim that pink Himalayan salt contains 84 trace minerals may be true, but the claim that it “promotes health and wellness” is false until proven otherwise by legitimate clinical studies. While waiting for evidence, I’d just as soon my salt didn’t contain uranium.”

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/pass-the-salt-but-not-that-pink-himalayan-stuff/

Here is an article from Jeff Novick which hits the question from a slightly different angle, but comes to the same conclusion: “My recommendations, which are inline with the IOM, recommend a limit on total sodium, regardless of the source. If you choose to use sea salt as the source of your sodium (as some people prefer the flavor of these “gourmet” salts), that is up to you, but it is not any healthier, safer, and/or more toxic than table salt.”

http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Blog/Entries/2012/3/29_Test_2.html

Makes sense to me!