Which salt is the most useful and which is more harmful?

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Salt, also known as sodium chloride, is a natural compound found everywhere: from food to our tears. Like any other substance, salt in large quantities can cause serious harm to the body: from chronic dehydration to serious heart and kidney problems. We have collected the most common myths related to salt and sorted out what is true and what is not.

MYTH 1: “Salt is white death”, therefore, it should be abandoned.

Excess salt in the body can cause problems with the kidneys, blood vessels, and heart, which is really dangerous in the long run, but the key word here is “excess.” Possible health problems are not a reason to choke on completely unsalted food and eliminate this additive from your life. We need salt in certain quantities. Sodium is used by the body to maintain normal blood pressure, fluid balance, and normal muscle and nerve function. In short, completely avoiding salt will bring no less problems than its excess, so you should not go to extremes.

MYTH 2: Pink/rock/sea salt is healthier than regular salt.

No matter how salt is extracted, it is still salt, so it is still necessary to control its amount. As for the vitamins and minerals contained in different types of salt, there are so few of them that they remain practically unnoticed by the body. For example, sea salt contains calcium, potassium, magnesium, and their content per 100 g is quite high. But if we consider that it is not recommended to consume more than 5 g of salt per day, then nothing will remain of these minerals. As for iodine, for the content of which everyone praises sea salt so much, after a while it does not remain there at all. Iodine is a volatile substance that evaporates perfectly from the surface of salt crystals. Therefore, it is better to get all the necessary minerals from fruits and vegetables, and strictly control the amount of salt.

MYTH 3: We eat salty food because our body requires it.

The need for salty food is exclusively acquired. The body can find those 3-5 g of salt necessary for normal functioning in ordinary, not very salty food (sodium is found almost everywhere, just in different quantities). If you constantly want to add salt to food because it seems bland to you, this is not a need of the body, but a matter of the work of taste receptors. The more often you eat salty food, the less sensitive the receptors become to it, that is, what seemed quite salty to you a month ago will now cause a desire to add more salt. If the food to which you added a decent amount of salt seems bland to you, try an experiment: completely abandon the added salt for a week, and then try this dish again. You probably won't even be able to finish it, it will turn out to be so salty.

MYTH 4: The high salt content in food is always noticeable in the taste.

One of the most common causes of excess sodium in the body. Salt is added to almost all ready-made foods: from bread to chocolate. As a rule, in small quantities and in combination with other ingredients that mask the salty taste. But all these “unsalted” at first glance products make up a daily salt intake that is several times higher than the norm. Try to cook as much as possible yourself and from simple products to be 100% sure of the composition. And it is better to refuse store-bought sauces – the percentage of salt in their composition is simply terrible.

MYTH 5: Problems caused by excess salt are always noticeable.

The main mistake, probably, of all humanity is “if something were wrong with me, I would have noticed already”. Most problems (not only from excess salt, but in general) do not reveal themselves until the situation becomes critical. If you regularly abuse salty foods, for many years the only noticeable symptoms will be thirst and swelling, as if nothing bad happened. A study by the University of Sydney found that more than 50% of people living with chronically high blood pressure are not even aware of it. Therefore, if you love salty foods and do not deny yourself them, you should be more careful, because the consequences may appear after 5 or even 10 years, and they will be very serious.