Moderate consumption of salt. Salt was always prized as one of the most valuable foods. The Roman centurions were paid salārium, or salt money (either in salt or money to buy salt). The table salt in the American diet is the sole source of iodine, a trace element essential for thyroid health. Salt is also the sole source of chloride in the diet. It‘s essential to produce hydrochloric acid to digest protein. Low-salt diets cause indigestion, delayed digestion, heartburn, GERD, peptic ulcers, and intestinal inflammatory disorders down the digestive tract from the rotting of undigested proteins. The longevity diet is naturally low in salt because it excludes all processed food.
Make sure to consume at least 5 to 6 grams of salt daily (“Food and Nutrition Board committee recently recommended that daily intake of sodium chloride be limited to 6 g. (2.4 g of sodium) or less.” Water and Electrolytes, page 253, Recommended Daily Allowances, 10th edition, National Research Council.) These 1989 recommendations were halved recently using fraudulent justification. I‘ll devote a separate essay to this subject soon.
If this “revelation” still bothers you, consider this — practically all ER patients are hooked up to an intravenous pump/drip as soon as they are admitted. What‘s an I.V. fluid? It‘s 0.9% solution of table salt. Hence, 5-6 grams of salt consumed daily represents 0.16% from total blood volume, and only 0.014% from all body fluids, which maintain similar “salinity.” So get over it, and do what the doctors do to stabilize the critically sick — consume salt in moderation. It will do your body good.
