Issue 2.10
Welcome and thank you for allowing me to share my passion, training and experience in nutrition, natural healing, holistic health and wellness with you.
I welcome your comments and if you're in the area, do drop by the new offices.
Warm regards and best wishes for the days, weeks months and years ahead %FirstName%.
Diane McLaren C.C.Ir., R.O.H.P., R.N.C.P.
Healthy You Naturally
A Div. of LifesGoals Inc.
(905) 855-3000
back to top 
Human taste can distinguish just four basic flavours; sweet, salty, sour, and bitter but though combinations of these four basic flavours, an infinite number of tastes
are possible.
When it comes to salty, salt is one of the oldest food flavouring agents know so
and is widely used today so let’s begin by recalling the generally accepted
definition of sodium:
"Sodium is a metallic element with a symbol Na (Latin natrium) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal and is a member of the alkali metals and has only one stable isotope, 23Na."
Essential & pleasurable in everyone's diet
- The human body needs salt for proper function
- Sodium is present in all body cells and helps
regulate the balance of water and plays a role in maintaining normal blood pressure.
- Sodium also plays a part in regulating the body’s acid balance
and aids in muscle contraction and nerve signal transmission.
- It makes prepared and processed food taste good
Nutritionally, an average person needs about
0.5 grams a day and up to 3 grams is still reasonable.
Most people from the west get 12 to 18 grams
a day!
Short term pleasure for long term pain
Feb. 1 2010 LONDON (Reuters) - Decades of progress
in the United States on cutting cholesterol, blood
pressure and smoking are being stalled by rising obesity
rates, and heart disease will kill around 400,000
Americans this year.
Sodium high diets have been directly linked to both
obesity and the growing risks of cardiovascular disease.
Few can argue too much salt is bad, but what about
good salts?
There is a lot of talk about differences in table salt
and sea salt but let's make sure we all understand that too much salt,
even the sea salt is not good!
Sea salt contains a much lower sodium level (avg.
65%) vs. commercial table salt with its chemical
additives at well over 99%.
Look at the label on a can of soup (any
box/can), you will see a sodium content rating, e.g. a tomato soup
at 27%/125ml, consume a
small can and you have over 50% your daily allowance,
and it is the poorer table salt variety.
Good restaurants want their food to taste great,
certainly all fast food restaurants do and if you read product labels, all are high in sodium
so over
consumption is very easy.
Symptoms of too much salt in a diet can include:
- Hardening of blood vessels and related organs
- Body fat retention as salt interferes with the
body's ability
to clear fats from the bloodstream (naturally)
- Kidney conditions
- Water retention
- High blood pressure
- Cardiovascular disease (including heart)
- Migraine / headaches
Good sources of body friendly sodium
Our bodies can’t use the sodium from inorganic table salt or other similar inorganic sources
including sea salt.
Instead we need sodium from foods high in good sodium.
Excellent natural sodium sources:
Celery, strawberries, watercress, spinach, carrots, beets, cucumber, string beans, asparagus, turnips, organic or free-range poached/soft-boiled eggs, coconut, black figs, cabbage, celtic salt, sea salt, kelp.
Avoiding excessive bad salt intake:
- Prepare your own foods
- Use “Herbamare”, a blend of sea salt / spices
- Choose raw foods which contain natural sodium as
opposed to packaged with “table salt/salt” including
soups, crackers, cereals, chips, nuts, seeds
- When choosing prepared foods, choose the ones
with sodium-free spices such as basil, bay leaves,
caraway seeds, curry, garlic, ginger, lemon, mint,
oregano, parsley, pepper, rosemary, sesame / thyme.
- Choose fresh vegetables and fruits, as opposed
to canned or frozen which use salt as a preservative
- If you choose deli meat, choose nitrite-free
brands
- Avoid MSG, antacids and processed foods.
The Secret Agent of Wellness
The story of sodium is not all bad and there is a surprising link between
sodium, healthy bones, anti-aging, digestion, kidneys, blood
pressure and the nervous system!
Benefits of sodium from natural sources:
- Sodium has been nicknamed the “youth” element
due to its properties of promoting youthful, limber,
flexible, pliable joints and maintaining a youthful
appearance well into our senior years.
- If it wasn’t for the neutralizing power of
sodium in the walls of the stomach and bowel, they
would be eaten away by the powerful acids, enzymes
and digestive juices secreted as foods are eaten.
- Sodium is closely associated with the
transmission of electrical impulses. Without
(good) sodium, our nervous system couldn’t function.
- Sodium keeps calcium in solution in the blood,
keeps joints and ligaments supple which means we feel
younger and more agile.
- Sodium feeds the friendly bacteria in the bowel,
therefore allowing for better digestion and
assimilation which means less bloating, burpy, gasy indigestion.
- When we have enough sodium, our memory, life
length, youth are enhanced, and pain is minimal;
health is generally excellent.
It's time to get your sodium ... naturally!
If you have questions about this, would like to know what herbs can assist or
have health concerns, I would be honored to be of service
in any way.
Hope you can join me next month.
Health regards,
Diane McLaren
back to top
|
|
