Salty Needs – For a Healthier Living

For most of us life would seem to be impossible without salt. Yet, there are people across the globe with hypertension and cardiacdefine problems, who are advised to practically cut salt from their diets. Is salt really a health hazard?

Our salty needs:

Salt is an important ingredient of a healthy body working. Less than 500 mg of sodium a day supplies for all vital functions and maintains normal fluid levels, healthy muscle function and proper acidity of the blood (ph). Our body requires salt for;

• Salt helps to regulate water content in body.

• It is vital to nerve cell communication and information processing.

• It balances blood sugar levels and slows down rate of ageing.

• It aids the absorption of food particles through the intestinal tract.

• It acts as a natural antihistamine and clears up sinuses.

• It firms up the bone structure.

• It prevents varicose veins.

Salt is necessary for survival, but when taken is excess it causes;

• It stimulates the sympathetic nervous system.

• Salt causes water retention in the body, thus causing a rise in the blood pressure.

• Salt leaches calcium from the bones, making them weak.

• Salt tends to cause hardening of the arteries.

• It interferes with the elimination of certain wastes from the body, contributing indirectly to high uric acid and gout.

• It puts load on he kidney, thus weakening them overtime.

Moreover, there is some amount of sodium salt present in every natural food we eat. This can meet the needs of the body under normal circumstances;

Food (per 100 mg)-Sodium Content (in mg)

• Onion – 5
• Water – 3
• Potato – 11
• Wheat - 18
• Tomato – 46
• Carrot – 36
• Spinach – 58
• Apple – 28
• Egg – 129
• Banana - 37