Many people choose, especially in summer, to consume salads as low-calorie dishes, following beauty or weight loss diets. But they can spoil all your efforts to continue with the consumption of common salt in these dishes, retaining fluids and preventing weight loss.

The salt we use in cooking

Common salt is, without a doubt, the seasoning most used in our western cuisine. Provides food with the basic salty flavor but also reinforces other flavors and aromas, stimulating appetite and intake. It has been determined that, from the age of 60, twice as much salt is required to recognize the salty taste. This is one of the reasons why, generally, there is a increasing consumption of salt with age. This greater amount of salt in meals is also related to the fact that, in this way, other flavors that we do not like are disguised and with the loss of flavor associated with toxic habits such as smoking.

Common salt ( sodium chloride ) provides large amounts of sodium, a mineral that is in balance with potassium in the body. The sodium-potassium balance is mainly responsible for the hydroelectrolytic regulation, that is, the exchange and renewal of fluids between our tissues and their elimination.

Contents of salt

Sodium is the main electrolyte in the exchange between body compartments through osmosis. That is to say, water always accompanies, and in great proportion, the “movements” of sodium through our body. If through diet our body absorbs and retains sodium, it will always be accompanied by absorption and retention of water. Our body, in addition, has specific mechanisms for an almost perfect reabsorption of sodium, preventing the loss of this mineral through urine. On the contrary, the mechanisms for the re-absorption of potassium are less effective.

The salt in our diet

Our Modern Western diet stands out , among other things, for a imbalance between sodium and potassium . This hinders kidney activity, and can lead to fluid retention disorders, cellulite, high blood pressure, tissue metabolic acidosis, rheumatism, arthritis, gout, as well as the accumulation of stones in the kidney and gallbladder.

Sodium is a mineral abundant in food and its contribution is greatly favored by the consumption of common salt. potassium is mainly found in vegetables , which should accompany all our dishes in large quantities, and in fruits . One of the great benefits of vegetarian diets is their better sodium-potassium balance, which translates into a good electrolyte balance, a better general cellular energy balance and benefits especially at the cardio-circulatory and nervous system level.

Our diet must monitor this balance and we must try to do without common salt or use it sporadically. There are numerous alternatives to the use of common salt.

Himalayan salt is one of the most comfortable alternatives. In addition to providing numerous beneficial trace elements, it has a better sodium-potassium balance. Herbal salts are mixtures of salt with aromatic plants, vegetables and algae, which reduce the sodium intake and balance this mineral with those provided by these vegetables. For salads and fresh dishes, we can use gomasio, a mixture of sesame seeds and salt. Sesame is one of the richest foods and with a very good calcium absorption rate. There are varieties of gomasio that include Himalayan salt and algae, always looking for an adequate mineral balance. And we can always combine these condiments with the use of spices and aromatic herbs, rarely used and whose beneficial properties we miss.