Sodium is a mineral that is essential to life. There exists a balance between sodium and potassium.  Most people eat more sodium than potassium, but sodium deficiencies can occur especially in those who take diuretics and also may follow a low sodium diet to control high blood pressure.

You probably already know that too much salt in our bodies can contribute to health problems like high blood pressure and research has also shown that it is linked to strokes and heart disease, calcium deficiency & osteoporosis, fluid retention, weight gain, stomach ulcers and cancer.  We do need salt in our diets just as we need water, fats and proteins.  Again the type and degree of refinement are at issue. Many commercial salts contain sugar (dextrose) to hide the harshness and /or some kind of anti-caking agent and iodine additive.  They are also stripped of all trace minerals to achieve that pure white granular form-some are even dissolved out of a salt mine as brine and then evaporated again quickly to make the small uniform cubes. A wiser choice would be unrefined sea salt or Real Salt. Real Salt is actually mined from an ancient seabed in Utah.  During the Jurassic period much of North America was covered by a sea, which evaporated and was then covered over by volcanic eruptions. Real Salt escaped the modern manmade pollutants of today and contains over 50 natural trace minerals including iodine.  Other sea salts are made by evaporating modern day seawater in shallow ponds.  The salt crystals are larger and irregular so they excel as a topping for baked fish or roasts where they are not totally dissolved until you eat them.

Since we only need less than 500 mg daily of sodium and a teaspoon of salt contains about 2000 mg it doesn

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