Read this article somewhere..Dont know why, but I feel very strongly about this whole banning of natural salt issue very unjustified. Sigh..
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Advantages of Natural Sea Salt:
Containing all of the 84 elements found in your body, the benefits include:
1. Regulating the water content throughout your body.
2. Balancing excess acidity from your cells, particularly your brain cells. Balancing your blood sugar levels and helping to reduce your aging rate.
3. Assisting in the generation of hydroelectric energy in cells in your body.
4. Absorption of food particles through your intestinal tract.
5. Help in clearing mucus plugs and phlegm from your lungs - particularly useful in asthma and cystic fibrosis.
6. Acts as a strong natural antihistamine and helps clear up congestion in your sinuses
7. Prevention of muscle cramps.
8. Making the structure of your bones firm - osteoporosis can occur when your body needs more salt and takes it from your bones.
9. Regulating your sleep - it is a natural hypnotic.
10. Maintaining your libido.
11. Preventing varicose veins and spider veins on your legs and thighs.
12. Stabilizing irregular heartbeats - in conjunction with water it is actually essential for the regulation of your blood pressure.
Drawbacks of Iodized Salt:
Iodizes salt is obtained by chemically cleaning the natural salt which removes all the minerals found in natural salt. What remains after typical salt is "chemically cleaned" is sodium chloride - an unnatural chemical form of salt that your body recognizes as something completely foreign. This form of salt is in almost every preserved product that you eat. Therefore, when you add more salt to your already salted food, your body receives more salt than it can dispose of.
In order for your body to try to metabolize iodized salt crystals, it must sacrifice tremendous amounts of energy.
Inorganic sodium chloride upsets your fluid balance and constantly overburdens your elimination systems, which can impair your health.
When your body tries to isolate the overdose of salt you typically expose it to, water molecules must surround the sodium chloride to break them up into sodium and chloride ions in order to help your body neutralize them. To accomplish this, water is taken from your cells and you have to sacrifice the perfectly structured water already stored in your cells in order to neutralize the unnatural sodium chloride.
This results in dehydrated cells that can prematurely kill them.
Continuous use of iodised salts can cause:
- Unsightly cellulite
- Rheumatism, arthritis and gout
- Kidney and gall bladder stones
Reason Government gives to Ban natural salt and promote iodised salt?
It says since to prevent diseases related to lack of iodine, iodised salt must be used. And since people are illiterate, so they wont know what salt to use. Therefore, if there is only one salt people will have to use it anyways and hence natural salt should be banned.
Even if iodised salt is used to treat lack of iodine deficiency disorders?
1) Adding iodine to salt is called fortification. During fortification the iodine content in the salt is 74%. But this content reduces down to 7-8% till it reaches common household. Iodine gets lost in storage etc…Plus due to our cooking methods, i.e. we add salt during cooking another (50 t0 60%) of whatever iodine is left also evaporates. So what finally people receive, that iodine is less than required per individual. What’s the use then??
2) Iodine deficiency is only found in regions near the Himalayan Belt. So there is no point making iodised salt compulsory on a national scale.
However, the most significant decline in the consumption of iodised salt has happened in places where a ban has been in force for the past two decades – the north-eastern states and Uttar Pradesh! The present Salt Commissioner S Sundaresan conceded in January 2004 that as per a survey commissioned by UNICEF and the Uttar Pradesh state government, 70 per cent of iodised salt was found to contain less than 5 PPM (parts per million) against the prescribed level of 15 PPM.
This indicates the quality of iodised salts being used in the country and there are no efficient testing methods available to ensure the good quality of iodised salts.
3) For a person whose iodine content intake is normal, if he is put on iodised salt it is very likely he can start suffering from what is called hyperthyroidism (disease due to excessive thyroid hormones). According to doctors, hyperthyroidism is on a rise these days in India.
In China, in 1995 the natural salt was banned and iodised salt was made compulsory. But no significant results were seen even after 5 years of this law in China.
Reasons:
1) Much of Iodine is lost till it reaches consumer. And when salt is added during cooking, again a high percentage of remaining iodine evaporates. Consumers still don’t get required iodine intake from iodised salt.
2) Deficiency of iodine is only in a specific region. So no satisfactory results were obtained when this law was applied on a national scale.
Conclusion:
Even iodised salt is not being able to provide the iodine content required due to losses of iodine. Since it is area specific (Himalayan belt region), applying it on a national scale is deadly as it may lead to hyperthyroidism. In India cases of hyperthyroidism is on a rise.
There are many minerals available in natural salt that are very essential for the normal functioning of the body. Iodised salt is Pure Sodium Chloride which is a foreign element to the body and hence not at all beneficial for our body.
Iodised salt should be available in areas where there is a significant iodine deficiency (maybe made compulsory in those areas) but natural salt should not be banned on a national scale and should be available to every person.
Iodised salt has been previously also made compulsory in many north-eastern states before but no significant improvement has been seen in these endemic regions. This is due to the poor quality of iodised salts that reach people. Government should also ensure that the quality of iodised salts should be good to solve the problem of iodine deficiency else promoting iodised salts is anyways of no use as statistics have shown before.
So Why Government is still pressing for Iodized salt?
Because well over 90% of the world's salt is being used directly for industrial purposes that require pure sodium chloride. The remaining percentage is used for preserving processes and ends up on your kitchen table.
With the use of rigorous advertising, the salt industry is successful in convincing you there are actually health advantages to adding potentially toxic iodine and fluoride to salt. In addition, your table salt very often contains dangerous preservatives not required to be listed on the packaging. Calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, and aluminium hydroxide are often added to improve the ability of table salt to pour. Aluminium is a light alloy that deposits into your brain - a potential cause of Alzheimer's disease
