Why are table salt and MSG called health destroyers?

April 23, 6:50 PMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Sacramento Nutrition Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Table salt is called a health destroyer, according to the book, The Calcium Lie: What Your Doctor Doesn't Know Could Kill You, by Robert Thompson, M.D. and Kathleen Barnes. The book points out that the salt that went on people's tables beginning in the early 20th century containing only sodium and chloride is not the same as the rock or sea salt used historically which contained "the other 76 minerals" present in rock salt or sea salt.

All over the world, goiter appeared due to iodine deficiency. Then the addition of iodized salt put back some of that mineral, but left out the rest of the minerals.

Some companies process table salt with aluminum. According to the book, The Calcium Lie, you also should not take colloidal minerals. The Calcium Lie explains that colloidal silver, for example, over time, accumulates permanently between your cells.

Colloidal forms of minerals get into your skin, in that area between the cells. Your body can't excrete colloidal minerals, and the minerals build up too much. Minerals in excess are dangerous. Instead, you need sea salt-derived ionic multiple minerals. What happens when the larger moleclules of colloidal silver or other colloidal-derived minerals get between the cells in back of your eyes, in your retina or in your organs and stay there?

Processed food and restaurant food is overdosing us on salt. From that can of vegetables to the wheat and parsley salad you get from a buffet restaurant that attracts vegetarians, salt is dumped into almost everything. And sugar is put into healthy foods such as carrot and raisin salad or cole slaw in most restaurants followed by salty dressings or mayonnaise. Can you imagine tasting magnesium in restaurant salt shakers or multiple minerals on condiment tables? (That happens in some European countries such as Finland.)

Why do cooks dump so much salt into soups? Or eggs? Or vegetables? When soups are on every restaurant table, why can't people have the choice of salting their own food? This is true whether you walk into a soup and salad eatery, a buffet place, diner, or you sit at a lunch counter. Same goes for the salad dressings or prepared vegetarian salads.

Why do so many prepared salads to go sold in groceries and supermarkets contain calcium chloride to preserve the color of the green vegetable leaves? Calcium chloride significantly raises blood pressure.

For every gram of added salt taken out of processed food, up to 250,000 cases of heart disease and 200,000 deaths can be prevented in a ten-year span, according to a recent analysis, I read in today's daily newspaper. But what's the name of the recent analysis?

The specific study by name wasn't cited in the news article. It's important to know who's making the analysis. We all know salt raises blood pressure in people who aren't highly salt resistant.

Chefs being trained are not told to cut down on the salt, and they dump salt into soups instead of using other spices that don't affect blood pressure. Public health agencies and medical groups keep asking restaurants and food manufacturers of processed food to cut down on the salt.

We need to color code our food packages with a green dot for low salt and a red dot for high salt. The goal for consumers is choice.

You need some salt to stay alive, and there's enough salt in natural foods to do that. Before 3,000 BCE, people didn't salt their food or preserve food by salting. They used spices, honey, and plants such as fruit juices, onions, garlic, fermented grains or fruit, and raisins, nuts, and cinnamon on grains, fish, or meat. People were used to the natural taste of food for thousands of years.

Food manufacturers need to cut salt by more than 20%. But it will take years before packaging labels change. It's voluntary. The daily recommendation for Americans is a teaspoon of salt, about 2,300 grams. But that's far too much. About a 1,000 grams is healthier, especially if you have a common gene variant that makes you sensitive to salt by raising your blood pressure.

Your best source at the moment are government reports, showing that people should eat less salt than what's recommended, about 1,500 milligrams. But you need eat more like 1,000 milligrams daily. African Americans are at greater risk than whites for hypertension and need a lower salt diet than the daily recommended amount that now is too high at 2,300 milligrams daily.

The best strategy at the present time is to eat food in its natural state and spice it with garlic, onion, lemon juice, spices, or celery seed, lemon juice, limes, fruit, apple cider vinegar, cayenne pepper, scallions, and vegetables such as parsley and celery stalks which have slightly salty tastes. Get your salty flavor from various herbs, spices, vegetables, and juices.

Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel Prizes, said, "You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency." Sea or rock salt contains all the minerals you need in the correct proportions, according to The Calcium Lie, (page 109)  The book also notes on page 109 that, "Table salt essentially is zero nutrition." 

Chefs could give customers a choice to season their foods when it boils down to condiments that raise blood pressure such as common commercial table salt and calcium chloride. Restauranteurs could put a choice of sea salt and rock salt shakers on the table next to a shaker of magnesium citrate powder?

At least it would bring back the salt-sensitive customers that make up nearly a fifth of the US population. About a fifth of the population might have a common gene variation that makes them sensitive to salt. The only way they'll find out about it is if their blood pressure is measured soon after they eat salt. Science claims that 60 percent of people with essential (common type) of high blood pressure is said to be salt-sensitive. But you need to find out whether your kidneys can handle the magnesium in a salt shaker.

Most health solutions books recommend that if you're healthy, you might need to take up to a tablespoon (615 mgs) daily of magnesium citrate powder. But you need to balance all your minerals and find out what you need. There are tests to see in which minerals you are deficient.  

If you put magnesium powder in a salt shaker, a sprinkle on your fish or vegetables would taste somewhat like lemon and would be about an eighth of a teaspoon. But measure it. You never want to take too much of a mineral because you need minerals in balance. Too much of any mineral is toxic. 

That's why what could go into a restaurant salt shaker would best be a perfect balance of all the minerals you need, including magnesium, in a form that looks like salt. How much magnesium are you gettting when you drink tap water or filtered water? What other minerals are you getting that your body actually needs?

Please don't put the commercial salt substitutes on the table either, chefs, as potassium chloride raises some people's blood pressure as their body's salt levels plummet. Instead, offer rock or sea salt on the table, white pepper, and perhaps magnesium citrate powder, or at least some garlic and onion powder or ground celery seed instead.

That way the fifth of the population sensitive to salt will have a choice to use the other types of seasonings such as garlic and onion powder or lemon juice, vinegar, and perhaps cayenne. If you're looking for cheap, plain garlic or onion powder is good enough. Too many restaurants put neurotoxic flavor extenders in food or on the table in a shaker.

Many restaurant workers and food processing company employees have no idea that the canned or packaged food restaurants get from suppliers already has the neurotoxin, MSG in the food. Just because it still remains on the safe foods list, doesn't mean that it will remain there forever.

Why is MSG it still permitted as an additive in food after all the cases complaining of health problems after using it ? It's being removed from some cans of soup, but is served in a lot of the buffet restaurant foods as a flavor extender. It's used to get the customer to come back again and buy more food.

Ask whether the  neurotoxin, MSG has been added to restaurant food before you eat it. Was it added in the kitchen or in the factory that supplied the canned soup, cans of cooked green beans, sauces, or other foods to the restaurant? Is there MSG in your fried rice from the soy sauce dumped on it?

Instead of frying white rice, and turning it brown with soy sauce, did the buffet restaurant ever try serving the more nutritious steamed brown rice? Many people are allergic to MSG. After eating it they get sensations as if the bones in their face are poking out due to muscle contractions or they get the shakes (and other frightening symptoms). And if too much salt in foods weren't enough, there's the neurotoxin, MSG used to enhance the taste of food.

The issue is about  dangers of MSG (monosodium glutamate) added to restaurant, school lunch foods, and various processed foods. It's also a big food issue as you can see in the uTube video at the bottom of this page. But to date, it still remains in some packaged and processed foods, and various restaurants and buffets use MSG to enhance the taste of foods.