I grew up in an era where salt was demonized. It still is, to a certain extent, but back in my childhood days all the “healthy” food had “salt reduced”, “low sodium”, “no added salt”, stretched across the labels of just about all the foods in the shop. A little packet of iodised cooking salt would last my mum pretty much all year, and it was certainly never on the table at meal times for people to add to their own plate. Having said all that, from as early as I can remember, I had the most intense cravings for salty foods and, given the chance, would have happily eaten hot salty chips all day long.
Skip forward about a decade later; I’m 18 years old, courting the kindest young country man and sitting down to dinner with his family. My now-father-in-law offers me a little glass salt shaker full of pink salt, “try this, it’s the very best salt you can get”.
Pink salt?
Can’t you get proper salt out here in woop-woop?
Not one to take people’s word on things, I shook a tiny bit into the palm of my hand and dipped the very tip of my tongue into it to see if it would make my mouth puff up or blister or something.
I can remember, so clearly, how surprised I was at just how good it tasted! I loved salty foods, but I never knew that salt could taste like this! The best way I can describe it is that it was like eating cheap, homebrand chocolate all your life, and then being given a piece of Lindt to try instead. There’s just no comparison. I proceeded to liberally salt my entire plate of food, and then, after the meal was done, I poured a little more into my hand to take with me. I’ve never had such a strong craving that was so deeply satisfied as that pinch of pink salt satisfied my life-long craving for salty foods.
I remember my father-in-law laughing at me, saying that I looked like one of his sheep at a salt-lick. I chuckle to think of it. It must have been a ridiculous sight, me licking at my palmful of salt as I left the dining room. What lunatic city girl had Thomas brought home? In actual fact, my father-in-law was right; like a sheep that is low in minerals, my body was craving mineral-rich salt! Not the bleached out, dusty, iodine-fortified salt that leaves an almost-sour, puckering sort of taste in your mouth, but actual, real natural salt that is full of trace minerals that are just not present in their dried out counterpart.
What I didn’t realise until years later was that the crippling period cramps that I suffered from during my late teen years almost entirely disappeared after I started to add real salt into my diet. My constant craving for salty chips greatly diminished too (though they are still my favourite treat even today). Chances are, the magnesium chloride that is found in natural, untreated salts was what my body had been craving all along.
When Thomas and I got married a few years later, the first thing I stocked my pantry with was a big bag of pink Himalayan rock salt, and a salt grinder. These days I rotate between different types of salts, all of them natural and none of them iodised. I like to use Himalayan, sea and lake salts when I’m cooking, and I keep a little dish of grey Celtic sea salt on the table so that we can salt our food to suit our individual tastes. I’m not afraid of consuming too much salt. If something tastes too salty to me, that’s my body’s way of telling me that I don’t need that much salt. If a food tastes a little bland, or like it needs a bit of salt, then I add a bit and taste it to gauge whether that is enough, or if more is needed again. We allow our children the same freedom to salt their food to their own taste. Some of our children will, like I do, enjoy a more heavily salted food, while others prefer not to add any extra at all. Our bodies have a God-given intuition that, if allowed to develop, will tell us what we need and what we don’t need to keep our systems in good health and working order.
It is incredible how such a humble thing can play such a vital role in the health of your body. Unrefined salts are also incredibly stable, and can be stored indefinitely without losing their flavour or mineral content. They’re basically the ultimate prepper pantry staple.
Good Catholics will know, too, the importance of keeping blessed salt in the house, and in using it frequently through the home and even in cooking. Blessed salt is just as good for your soul as it is for your body! It was not for nothing that Christ said “you are the salt of the earth,”. As Christians we are called to spread our faith to all the world, to improve, fortify and preserve the spiritual health of others, just as good salt improves, fortifies and preserves flavour and our health.
Read more about Catholicism and salt here.
To learn more about how real salt is truly good for you, have a listen here to people much more learned than I.
Peace be with you.