Which Salt is Best?

Patients ask me a lot about whether or not they should have salt in their diet. As long as they are not suffering from water weight, kidney dis-ease or high blood pressure, salt is a great thing to add to your food. The real question is what kind of salt? And my answer is the pink one!

Over the last couple of years there has been a rave about sea salt being a healthy alternative to table salt but do you know why it's better or have you just been using it because you like it's texture and you think it tastes better?

Sea salt is obtained directly through the evaporation of seawater. It is usually not processed, or undergoes minimal processing, and therefore retains trace levels of minerals like magnesium, potassium, and calcium.

Table salt, on the other hand, is mined from salt deposits and then processed to give it a fine texture. This processing strips table salt of any minerals it may have contained, and additives are also usually incorporated to prevent clumping or caking. Chlorine is also used to make the salt the pearly white that it is. Yes, that's right, they use chlorine, meaning that they bleach it, just like we use bleach to make our whites whiter that's what they use to make table salt white.

Some say there are no real health advantages of sea salt because one can receive the trace minerals found in sea salt in other healthy foods and that table salt does have iodine added since the 1920s to prevent the iodine-deficiency disease goiter. And I say that given the choice of trace mineral filled salt or salt with synthetic iodine, bleach and other preservatives I'll go with the all-natural sea salt.

An even better salt than sea salt is Himalayan salt which I think tastes even better and has 84 trace minerals in it compared to sea salt's 7. Trace minerals are important to the nutrition of the body in order to regulate many enzymatic reactions. If we aren't getting enough minerals from our diet then a trace minerals supplement can always help.

I wonder if all the problems we attribute to consumption of too much salt is actually due to the toxicity of chlorine or food additives or the stripping of minerals from the salt. I wonder if the salt, not having its natural minerals, causes our digestion system to borrow the minerals from the body in order to digest it properly and in the long run actually cause deficiencies in the body that turn into water imbalances in the body that if left long enough these imbalances turn into disease - high blood pressure, heart disease or kidney dysfunction. Just food for thought or should I say, salt for thought? :-)

Best Water When No Alternative

A lot of my patients get muscle tested for plastic toxicity in my office. As they are making the transition out of plastic water bottles they ask me when they are out for the day and stuck having to buy water in plastic, for many stores don't carry it in glass, what water is best to buy? After thoroughly muscle testing and finding what bottled water test best, here are the results in order, #1 being the best:

1) Mountain Valley

2) Volvic

3) Evian

Aluminum Toxicity

A normal, healthy body naturally heals from most types of conditions, whether from illness or injury. If you have a health condition that is not healing, there must be a barrier to your health that has to be identified and addressed. In this way your body can overcome that barrier and your ability to reach optimal health is possible.

Typical barriers to healing include stressed emotions, a weak immune system, food allergies and the effects of toxic chemicals and metals in the body. In the office, we identify what toxins are stuck in your body and give you supplements to help open the body's detox pathways so the body can detox it.  Helping the body by opening your natural detox pathways is important so the body can detox on it's own.   Patients are usually amazed at how fast healing starts with just a few key changes in their life.

Aluminum often comes up as a heavy metal that needs to be detoxed. So after testing patients for the supplement they need to help open up the body's own detox pathways, it's also important that they stop putting aluminum in their body. Metal toxicity can cause many different symptoms in the body including headaches, digestive issues, insomnia, depression, anxiety and much more.  Aluminum toxicity is known for causing Alzheimer's.

Where does aluminum toxicity come from and how to avoid it?

1. Aluminum cans

2. Aluminum foil

3. Aluminum take-out containers

4. Deodorant
Many aluminum-free deodorants are available including Raw 4 Beauty, Tom's, JASON, Native, and Every Man Jack. Here's also a great recipe for making your own!

5. Anti-acids
Maalox and Mylanta contain aluminum. Rolaids and Tums are alternatives that don't contain aluminum.

6. Aluminum pots, pans, baking sheets, scratched teflon
Cook with stainless steel, ceramic, glass and cast iron

7. Antidiarrheal Products
Watch labels carefully for any mention of aluminum salts.
Products containing loperamide such as Imodium AD usually do not contain aluminum salts.

8. Buffered Aspirin
Buffered aspirin can contain up to 14.4 to 88 milligrams of aluminum hydroxide or aluminum glycinate. Ordinary aspirin is aluminum free as are many other pain killers.

9. Douches
Many popular douche products contain aluminum salts. A homemade version of vinegar and water can be substituted.

10. Food Additives
Cake mixes, frozen doughs, self-rising flour, and sliced process cheese food all contain from 5 to 50 milligrams of sodium aluminum phosphate per average serving. Baking powder has 5 to 70 milligrams of sodium aluminum sulfate per teaspoon. Starch modifiers and anti caking agents also contain varying levels of aluminum compounds. The processed cheeses used on cheese burgers at fast food restaurants also contain aluminum, which is added to make the cheese melt better.

11. Shampoos
A number of anti-dandruff preparations contain magnesium aluminum silicate. Watch labels carefully for aluminum lauryl sulfate, which is a common ingredient in many popular shampoo products.