On an Alkaline Paleo Diet We Need More Salt Because:
Eating a high carbohydrate diet the kidneys will hold onto too much salt. When we restrict carbohydrates our kidneys release the salt which takes water with it. Such is the natriuretic (excretion of large amounts of sodium in the urine) effect of low carbohydrate eating that we have to add salt to our diet to ensure we don’t get dehydrated because of the salt and fluid loss.
The great thing about the Alkaline Paleo program is that it relieves fluid retention and lowers high blood pressure.
After being on this program I noticed I didn’t have the usual bags under my eyes when I got up in the morning. This was the first time I had no bags under my eyes in 30 years.
I didn’t need to have expensive surgery to “debag” under my eyes.
I also stopped getting premenstrual fluid retention.
The high intake of salt on the Alkaline Paleo diet actually relieves fluid retention and lowers high blood pressure, contrary the USDA guidelines which says that increasing salt intake will increase blood pressure. Gary Taubes, scientific journalist and author of Why We Get Fat has written an article for the New York Times using the studies that were supposed to prove that salt was no good for humans. He shows in this article this is not the case at all and the conclusions to the studies were very flimsy. See his article here
IMPORTANT: If you are on blood pressure medication:
If you are on blood pressure medication you may start to become dizzy when you begin this program. Make sure you visit your doctor as you will need to slowly or quickly come off your blood pressure medication.
Indications of Needing More Salt
- If you are urinating more frequently you need to up your Celtic sea salt intake
- .If you have a headache, fatigue, weakness and constipation take more Celtic sea salt
- If you are getting cramps increase your Celtic sea salt intake. (Cramps can also mean you are not drinking enough water or you may need more potassium)
- If you get dizzy standing up too quickly
Celtic sea salt is the only salt with all the minerals your body needs which includes Iodine.
I wasn’t getting enough salt at the beginning of the program and I had the worst night of cramps I had every had. Went away as soon as I upped my salt intake.
Celtic salt is a grey colour indicating mineral content.
Why Consume Salt Containing Iodine?
Low Iodine levels can trigger low HCL (stomach acid) production essential for all digestion stages.
Low levels of HCL is very common in today’s world where we are eating too much carbs.
Iodine also enables chloride to enter stomach cells, this is important because the chloride ion in salt is an element of HCL. There are about 600 milligrams chloride per 1 gram of salt.
If you cannot obtain Celtic salt you can consume sea vegetables (seaweeds) along with salt as they can provide iodine.
Salt in History
Wars were fought over access to salt.
Roman soldiers were often paid with a measure of salt, hence the origin of the English word “salary”. Hunters and their prey, herders and their cattle, all shaped their actions and habits around access to salt.
Humans did not need to know chemistry to understand the value of salt.
Salt deprivation leads to lightheadedness, fatigue, headache, and malaise.
Aboriginal cultures could figure out that if they drank from one spring they began to feel lousy, but if they drank from that other one, they’d feel OK. The Inuit knew which ice to melt for water to boil their meat. Sea ice loses its salt content with age. Fresh ice had too much salt, fresh snow had none, whereas older seas ice was just right.
Now that our diet is much closer to that of the hunting cultures we need more salt, as they understood the need for it, and thus their highly evolved practices of finding salt and consuming enough of it to maintain health and well-being.