One of the major health benefits of preparing foods at home from fresh ingredients is that you have control over the ingredients in the dishes you prepare. You want the highest quality ingredients, the foods that will bring the most health to your body and your family, so you choose fresh, whole natural foods, perhaps organically- grown. But what about the salt you use?

How Refined Salt Affects Your Health

Salt, as it occurs in the Earth, is a complex crystal containing eighty-four elements that are vital to life. These include sodium, magnesium, silicum, chloride, calcium, titanium, manganese, iron, copper, zinc, selenium, zirconium, silver, iodine, platinum, gold, and many more. These nutrients are the same elements originally found existing in the "primal ocean" where all life originated, and the same elements our bodies need for good health.

By contrast, refined table salt contains none of its original minerals. To make refined table salt, natural salt from the sea or mines is refined to pure sodium chloride. Then sodium ferro cyanide and green ferric ammonium citrate are added as anti- caking agents. If you purchase iodized salt, it also contains potassium iodine, dextrose (that's refined sugar) to help stabilize the iodine, and sodium carbonate to preservative the color of the salt. Instead of building health, eating refined salt destroys body health.

Whether or not we are aware of the dangers of sodium chloride, our bodies recognize sodium chloride as an unnatural substance--a poison--and try to eliminate it as quickly as possible. The problem is, we eat more salt than our bodies can process out, which leads to edema, or excess fluid in the body tissue. This is why doctors tell us to avoid salt. If there is more sodium chloride in a body than it can neutralize with edema, the body get rids of the excess sodium chloride by making it into new crystals. These are deposited directly in the bones and joints and are known as arthritis, gout, and kidney and gall bladder stones. Refined salt also contributes to high blood pressure, which greatly increases the risk of developing heart disease or stroke.

About 93 percent of the salt produced throughout the world is used directly for industrial purposes. It is essential to make products such as laundry detergent, varnish, plastics and other products.

For these industrial uses, chemical processes require pure sodium chloride. To obtain sodium chloride, all the essential minerals and trace elements that make natural salt so vital to life are removed discarded as impurities.

Because sodium chloride is already being produced for industrial purposes in massive amounts, it is the cheapest salt available. Thus refined sodium chloride has become our common table salt.

Refined Salt in Food Products

Industrial sodium chloride also functions as an inexpensive food preservative. Its low cost is the reason so many ready-to-eat food products are heavily salted. Sodium chloride inhibits the natural breakdown of the food, increasing its shelf life of foods that would naturally spoil very quickly. Since foods break down in our bodies with the same processes nature uses to break foods down outside of our bodies, sodium chloride in food products also makes them more difficult to digest.

When we are cooking at home, it's important to be able to identify which foods we are eating contain refined salt.

Some foods containing refined salt are obvious, such as potato chips, pretzels, other snack foods, and salted nuts.

Processed meats, such as bacon, ham, hot dogs, and salami also contain a lot of refined salt.

Also watch out for refined salt in condiments such as catsup, pickles, mustard, mayonnaise, and salad dressings.

Canned soups and soups made with bouillon cubes are full of refined salt.

Think we're done with the list? Remember butter and cheeses contain refined salt too.

Natural Salt is Healthy Salt

The health affects associated with salt--edema, arthritis, gout, kidney and gall bladder stones, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke--are the result of eating refined sodium chloride, not from eating natural salt.

When we eat natural, living salt, which contains all its original elements, our bodies receive the salt they need to thrive. It's easy to just use natural salt in any recipe instead of refined salt. It's healthier for your body and tastes better too.

But what about all those convenience foods that contain salt?

Here's a recipe that you can try that is very easy. You can make this chicken soup with natural salt, then freeze it in serving-size containers so you'll have it on hand to heat up just like a can of soup. Though it takes some cooking time, the preparation time is very short, so you can put it together and let it cook while you do something else. Your family will love this warm, nutritious soup.

CHICKEN VEGETABLE SOUP

1 roasting chicken
(or you can use inexpensive parts like wings and thighs)
4 medium onions
6 large carrots
6 stalks of celery
natural salt
pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Remove any innards that may be in the chicken cavity, rinse the chicken inside and out.
3. Put the chicken in a roasting pan and season with natural salt and pepper.
4. Roast for about two hours (depending on size), or until the juices run clear when you poke a meaty section with a knife.
5. Remove the chicken from the oven and allow to cool.
6. Pull most of the chicken meat from the bones and set aside.
7. Put the chicken bones and roasted skin into a large soup pot. Roughly chop 2 onions, 3 carrots, and 3 stalks of celery, and add them to the pot.
8. Add water to cover the chicken and vegetables.
9. Over high heat, bring the soup to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about an hour.
10. Strain bones and vegetables from the broth. Discard bones and vegetables, and allow stock to cool. If you wish to remove the fat, refrigerate to solidify the fat, then skim it off with a spoon.
11. When you are ready to make the soup, chop the remaining vegetables and add them to the stock. Bring to a boil and cook the vegetables until tender. Then add the chicken meat and cook for a few minutes until warmed. Season to taste with natural salt.

NOTE: If the stock doesn't have enough flavor, the next time you make it, reduce the stock in volume by continuing to simmer the strained stock over low heat. The more you reduce the stock, the stronger the flavor will be. You can reduce the stock until it is very concentrated and freeze it into ice cubes, as an easy way to always have soup stock on hand.

Hilde Bschorr is the Owner of Himalayan Living Salt, an online purveyor of natural, unrefined, living salt products.