The Salt of the Earth

Salt often gets a bad rap in the health conscience world today. However, salt is vital to our beings. Salt plays a crucial role in the digestion of our food. It begins the moment the salt first hits our taste buds. The mere taste of it will activate the primary digestive enzyme in the mouth and then as it is ingested, it continues it's good work. Sodium chloride (salt) creates hydrochloric acid which is critical to the breakdown of food. Those who eat a "no salt" diet can suffer greatly. Salt is needed. Pure and simple.

The problem we have today is the type of salt we are ingesting. Regular table salt that is most commonly used is refined. What refining means in the salt world is that it is treated with a caustic soda or lime to remove all the traces of magnesium salts which are beneficial to the body. They remove the magnesium because it brings in profits to sell the magnesium. They will also add in alumino-silicate of sodium or other desiccants and bleaches to make the salt whiter and flow easier. When the salt is finally packaged, it is so stripped of the natural trace elements that it now becomes unusable by the body. In fact, it becomes harmful.

Our processed foods today are loaded with this junk table salt. It is one of the reason's we Americans are killing ourselves. It is cheap and it tastes good. That's what we are famous for.

There are alternatives. Healthy alternatives to getting the salty taste we crave (moderately, of course). There are sea salts that are sold everywhere from Walmart to Williams Sonoma. They are much less processed than the table salt but if you want to go a step beyond and make the salt actually healthy for you, Celtic salt is where I put my salt bucks.

Celtic salt is salt taken from the earth in it's natural state, from the sea. It is hand harvested and laid out to dry in the sun. It is completely unrefined and retains the trace elements as given by the Creator himself. It is slightly gray in appearance and has a richer flavor. I love to cook with it. I keep it in a glass sugar shaker by my stove. It does cost more but how much salt do you need everyday? A few bucks more is definitely worth your health.

If you haven't done your shopping on Amazon yet, check it out. I have given you a link at the end of this post for a great deal on 5#'s of the Celtic Salt I like. It will last a very long time. You can also buy smaller sizes. I will try to put up weekly deals from Amazon that I find so you can save some money on the good healthy products I love. You will save bundles over shopping at a health food store. Most of the time you won't even have to pay shipping if you spend over $25 on items. Super deal. So keep your eyes on my sidebar for the best deals of the day.