America is addicted to excessively salty foods and I take that personally. I’ve always been sensitive to salt, it’s irritating, water retentive and if I get too much in my food my shoulders hurt and I don’t sleep well. For many years I’ve never salted my foods. But, my dad loved salt, so does my son and my wife Lahni for many years described herself as a ‘saltaholic ‘.
In Chinese the words for ‘I love you’ are ‘I feed you’. Lahni loves me so she feeds me and often that meant more salt than was good for me. Then we moved into the orbit of Paleo and part of the approach is removing salt. No biggie for me, not so much for Lahni, but over time she has reduced her salt intake dramatically. Now when we eat out if something is salted she finds it excessively so. Good for me and her. This past week we have been very busy because we live in wine country, Sonoma and Napa, and we run a winery tour company. This is the high season and we’ve been on the road a lot and when we’re not we’re preparing for the next tour. When you have both been out driving all day talking over your shoulder to clients and you come home to a hot house eating out makes so much sense.
After eating out three times over three days I am suffering from salt pain. My joints hurt and my teeth. I sleep fine once I can get to sleep and then I wake up very early, before sunrise. The foods we’ve been eating out are still on the Paleo diet but I made a mistake, I forgot to ask for no added salt. VERY IMPORTANT. Once you get accustomed to feeling good, sleek, toned and young again don’t forget to ask for NO SALT!
If you, like me run into this little wall remember the salt will eventually leave, but if you want to hurry it along use Nature’s Sunshine Products Potassium Combination. This combination of herbs and minerals is a life saver. Sodium and Potassium work in a balance and the Potassium helps drain extra fluids containing both sodium and chloride from the system. Salt is a combination of sodium and the acidic mineral chloride.
Table salt is a bait and switch. The body will crave sodium so it will seek salty foods, but table salt’s sodium is bound to chloride, an acidic mineral that the body uses to break down soap like materials. The body rarely craves chloride but since it comes in the package you’re stuck with it. The problem comes from the body getting a lot more irritating chloride than is good for you. I would write more but I have to get some Potassium Combo from my herb cabinet.