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Salt Consumption: What Science Says
The surprising effects of salt on kidneys, heart, and overall health.
Salt is everywhere these days. You find it in almost all the bread you buy, in popular cereals, in wheat flour, and even in pastries. At the dining table, salt is almost always present — many people use one or even more salt shakers during meals. Some might consume as much as an ounce of salt every day!
But here’s the real question: Are we already getting enough salt from the foods we eat, or are we adding too much?
Some people say that the salt we add to our food differs greatlyfrom the salt naturally found in raw foods. They claim added salt is inorganic, hard to absorb, or even harmful, while natural salt is better for us.
However, this difference is not fully proven. For example, herbivorous animals are attracted to salt, but carnivores aren’t. This might be because plants contain mostly potassium salts, while sodium chloride — common salt — is mainly found in the blood and flesh of animals.
Herbivores get sodium chloride from plants, and they don’t usually have access to salt licks or mineral sources. So they store sodium chloride from plants, while letting potassium salts pass through.
