DEAR THYROID^TM

Salt seems such a ubiquitous ingredient.   It’s everywhere — on every dining room table we sit at, in every restaurant we visit, atop every food that passes our lips.   Salt is a most necessary flavoring and ingredient in cooking, baking, and seasoning.   It is ancient and it is necessary to human life and health (every cell in the body requires it to function).   But conventional medicine warns us to limit our intake.   Perhaps, though, this is flawed thinking because, after all, the salt that comes to us in little white shakers isn’t anything like nature intended, only you’d never know it just by looking.

Salt is especially a hot topic in the world of thyroids because we are told it is our most important source of iodine, which we need a good amount of, but not too much, and no one knows just how much is too little or too much… especially depending upon which kind of thyroid disease you have.   Either way, damage can occur if the proportion is out of balance.

The table salt we all grew up on and use daily in our cooking and in our homes is not actually the pure product it seems. Table salt is as much a “real” food as is white bleached flour, and refined sugar — they all have been stripped of natural vitamins and minerals and are partial, incomplete products that the body does not know how to process because they are not in whole form and not found in nature.

Sodium chloride is the resulting product of processing and refining sea salt — it’s what makes up table salt and it does the body absolutely no good.   Table salt has been bleached, refined, and mixed with various chemicals and anti-caking agents.   Specifically, table salt is usually mixed with sugar — yes, sugar!! — to give it a mild, non-bitter flavor, as the aforementioned processing removes essential minerals that would normally give natural salt a pleasing flavor.   With each shake of salt we’re putting on our food, we’re also shaking on dextrose.   Other ingredients usually include calcium silicate, sodium silicoaluminate (yep — that’s a toxic aluminum derivative), fluoride (yes, fluoride! Now if that doesn’t scream thyroid disease…), and potassium iodine.   Do you feel lied to yet?,   It is any wonder we’ve equated salt with so many health problems?

Not only does sea salt not contain any chemical additives, but also, it hasn’t been stripped of its natural minerals that are required by the body — iodine being one of them.   I won’t try and argue how much iodine a body needs everyday, because the verdict is still out, especially for us as thyroid patients.   (Even doctors and health professionals can’t agree.) Instead, what’s important to know is that sea salt does contain iodine.   The reason salt started to be iodized originally was not because sea salt didn’t contain iodine, but because people had already stripped natural salt of its trace minerals via processing. In the 1920s, many Americans were suffering from goiter, which is thought to be prevented through adequate iodine supply.   In areas of the country where goiters were rampant, there was no iodine in the soil.   Subsequently, manufacturers, as urged by the government, re-added iodine to their processed table salt.

Here’s what Dr. Mercola has to say on the subject: “For every gram of sodium chloride that your body cannot get rid of, your body uses 23 times the amount of cell water to neutralize the salt. Eating common table salt causes excess fluid in your body tissue, which can contribute to: unsightly cellulite, rheumatism, arthritis and gout, kidney and gall bladder stones.   When you consider that the average person consumes 4,000 to 6,000 mg of sodium chloride each day, and heavy users can ingest as much as 10,000 mg in a day, it is clear that this is a serious and pervasive issue.”

And while we’re at it, let me ask you this: why would the natural ratio of iodine in salt (as found in pure, unrefined, real sea salt) not be insufficient for the body?,   Don’t humans always get into trouble when they try to manufacture and replace something from-the-ground and found perfect in nature?

My personal choice for salt is always sea salt.   More specifically, I use the Real Salt brand.   Their salt is really the highest quality and lends a perfectly sweet flavor to whatever I’m cooking.   They also have a line of flavored salts (among them, onion salt, garlic salt, and a multi-seasoning salt), all of which utilize organic spices mixed with their sea salt.   I like these because, as a gluten-free’er, I usually avoid spice mixes due to the fact that there may be hidden sources of gluten, chemicals, excitotoxins (MSG, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, etc.), grains (in the form of cornstarch and anti-caking agents) in the mix, which may or may not be required to be listed on the ingredients label.

Real Salt is derived from salt deposits in Utah, in which (during the Jurassic era), volcanoes erupted around the seabed, which sealed in salt and trace minerals from modern pollutants and toxins.   So, the product we then consume is pure and non-toxic.   You can find Real Salt in most health food stores, Whole Foods, or via their website, www.RealSalt.com.   I love their product and they have my loyalty for life.   My health is too important to me.   It’s my own little way of saying no to fluoride and yes to better thyroid health.

Now before you move on to consider all of this, remember that last week, we participated in a giveaway with the good folks at Jarrow — a fabulous line of supplements and probiotics; probiotics being essential for endocrine and immune function.   And, the winner from last week’s giveaway for probiotics from Jarrow, as chosen by Random.org is…

Robyn!! (Robyn with a “y”!!)

Robyn, email me your shipping information, please, so that Jarrow can ship your probiotics asap!,   Liz@DearThyroid.com

Resources:

• Avoid Table Salt: Learn Why You Should Switch to Unrefined Sea Salt
• Why do they add iodine to table salt?
• The Kitchen Transition

Until Next Week,

Love Always,

Liz

Have a question, comment, story, love letter, or rant/rave to send me?: Liz@DearThyroid.com

Tags: How To Kick Your Thyroid's Ass, iodine thyroid patients, Liz Schau Health and Nutrition Columnist, salt's impact on thyroid patients, table salt thyroid disorders

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