The British campaign group Action on Salt (formerly Consensus Action on Salt & Health, or CASH) organizes an annual ‘World Salt Awareness Week’ to raise awareness of the health effects of excess salt. In 2023, ‘World Salt Awareness Week’ runs from 14 to 20 March. Salt is an essential nutrient for various functions in our body. So, there is some debate about how much salt is desirable to consume, but what is clear is that you cannot stay healthy if you do not eat salt at all.
Sea salt is rich in minerals and minerals, so it is good for health. ㅣSource: Getty Image Bank
How Salt Affects Your Health
Salt is one of the minerals important for survival, allowing nerves to send and receive electrical impulses, keeping muscles strong and helping cells and brains work properly. Since it is a nutrient that cannot be produced by the body, it must be consumed directly. Most people think of salt as sodium. Salt contains about 40% sodium, and the remaining 60% is chlorine, small amounts of sulfate ions, and various minerals.
Therefore, reducing salt by considering ‘salt = sodium’ is not reducing sodium intake. Of course, excessive intake of salt increases the possibility of developing high blood pressure because it exceeds the recommended daily intake of 2,000 mg of sodium. This is because eating salty foods increases the amount of blood in order to reduce the concentration of sodium in the body, resulting in high blood pressure. In addition, if a patient suffering from cardiovascular disease eats a lot of salt, blood pressure rises, which can cause a stroke or heart attack. There are also studies that show that a lot of salt has a direct effect on cerebral infarction and increases the mortality rate of cerebral infarction. In addition, salt causes inflammation in the stomach and damages tissue cells, creating mutant cells such as cancer cells, increasing the risk of stomach cancer.
However, in some cases, reducing salt too much can have adverse effects on health. Cardiac diseases such as heart failure and arrhythmia, not related to high blood pressure, are typical. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), heart disease patients with sodium deficiency have a high risk of myocardial infarction, stroke, and mortality. Sodium regulates body fluid volume (liquid in the body, including blood, lymph, and tissue fluid), and heart disease patients have a reduced heart contraction function, so if you eat less sodium, blood cannot go to the whole body. In addition, lack of sodium, which regulates heart rate, prevents the heart from contracting properly, which is fatal for heart disease patients.
Characteristics of each type of salt that is beneficial to health
The recommended daily salt intake by the World Health Organization (WHO) is 5 g (2,000 mg sodium). The average sodium intake of Koreans is 4,646mg, which is more than twice the WHO recommended amount, which is a serious level.
Haidaq nutrition counseling nutritionist Park Jung-won said, “Added to dishes using fresh ingredients or consumed as food-specific salt and sodium account for around 20% of the total intake, and the rest is consumed through instant food and chemically synthesized complex seasonings. do,” he said. In addition, he emphasized, “The biggest reason to be careful about salt intake is to limit the intake of sodium contained in salt more than necessary.”
With the development of salted foods such as soy sauce, salted fish, pickles, and salty eating habits, as well as the added sodium of instant foods, we are already eating a sufficient amount of salt. Therefore, it is as important to eat good and healthy salt as to reduce salt.
Salt can be divided into ‘rock salt’ obtained from the mountains and ‘sun-dried salt’ obtained from the sea, depending on where it is collected. Rock salt is a mineral that has been turned into a mineral over a long period of time after the sea turned into land due to a tectonic shift in the past. An example of rock salt is Himalayan pink salt. The specific gravity of sodium chloride in rock salt is about 95-98%, and there are almost no minerals. The salt we are familiar with is sea salt rather than rock salt.
Bay salt is made by confining seawater in salt ponds and evaporating moisture and harmful components with sunlight and wind. Domestic sea salt is famous for its rich minerals and minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, zinc, potassium, and iron. Sodium chloride is about 80-88%, and the rest are minerals and minerals. Sea salt, which has a high water content, is mainly used to pickle cabbage when making kimchi, or to make sauces and salted fish.
Another type of salt is self-salt made with the traditional Korean salt manufacturing method. The seawater that comes in at high tide passes through the dry tidal flats, reducing its salinity, and boils it in a cauldron for about 10 hours to obtain salt. Compared to sea salt, it has fewer bacteria and impurities and is rich in minerals, so it has a mild salty taste.
There is also flower salt made by dissolving bay salt in clean water to remove impurities and then boiling it again. Kosher salt is named because the shape of the crystals resembles the shape of a snowflake. It is used in cooking such as soup or side dish.
Refined salt is salt made by refining technology using electrodialysis. It is made by passing seawater through an ionized water membrane with fine pores to remove impurities and heavy metals. Although it can quickly produce a large amount of salt, minerals and minerals are also removed during the electrodialysis process, and sodium chloride has a specific gravity of 99%, which is the highest among salts. It is often used for seasoning salt with added MSG (sodium glutamate), which is commonly used at home.
There is also bamboo salt that is baked nine times over a hot pine wood fire at 600 degrees after putting bay salt in a bamboo tube and covering it with a red clay lid. Bamboo salt is used more for beauty or disease treatment than for cooking because of the addition of the mineral components of sea salt and the good components of bamboo.
Salt essential for the body, how to eat wisely
Park Jeong-won, a nutritionist, advised, “Although the amount of salt intake may vary depending on the individual’s age, gender, amount of physical activity, and health condition, it is recommended to consume less than 5g per day.” He also said, “Many people consume more salt than is recommended, so if possible, reduce the use of salt in food preparation and try to reduce salt intake in daily eating habits.” In particular, he added, “After stress or excessive exercise, sodium consumption in the body rises rapidly, so you should refrain from eating food under stress.”
In the case of Korean food with many seasonings, 40% of the total sodium is consumed through seasonings. You can reduce your sodium intake by seasoning with natural ingredients such as garlic, green onion, chives, green peppers, ginger, and onions instead of seasonings. Instead of seasoning with salt, you can also use seasonings with strong aroma and taste, such as pepper, red pepper powder, curry, mustard, and wasabi. You can taste the salty taste you need when seasoning food with potassium instead of salt. Low-sodium salt, low-salt soy sauce, and low-salt soybean paste sold on the market use less salt and add potassium instead of sodium to give them a salty taste. However, people who are taking medication for high blood pressure or have reduced kidney function may accumulate excessive potassium in the body, so it is recommended that you consult with your doctor before eating low-salt foods that use potassium.
Also, if you eat too much salt, drink plenty of water to help your body restore its desired sodium-to-water ratio. Eating fresh vegetables with meals is also helpful.
Help = Haidaq Nutrition Counseling Park Jung-won (nutritionist)
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