Today people are becoming more health conscious. They are making choices of foods like high fibre cereals,green /herbal teas, etc. Most of them shop for the products which are labelled as cholesterol free, sugar free, high fibre, heart friendly, organic, natural and not processed. One of such products is sea salt. Many people are inclined towards sea salt considering table salt is THE CULPRIT. Anything in excess is surely going to harm you; be it a table salt, sugar, oil or refined flour.Also, you cannot eliminate salt completely from your diet. Any salt whether it is a sea salt or table-salt is essentially a sodium chloride.
Seasalt: It involves less processing as a result it has larger crystals,coarse and crunchy texture and more flavour than powdered table salt. The flavour depends on the coarseness; more the coarseness stronger is the flavour.The colour of sea salt is usually off white or pink. The minerals add flavour and colour to sea salt.
Though sea salt is unrefined, the sodium chloride content in sea salt and table salt is THE SAME.The type of salt and its proportion always remains same, 85.62% sodium chloride and 14.38% other trace minerals like Sulphate, Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium,bicarbonate, bromide, borate, strontium and fluoride.
Table salt: Table salt is made by refining sea salt to purify the sodium chloride. Table salt is also mined for munder ground salt deposits that are the remains of ancient lakes or seas. It is heavily processed. Table salt is refined, bleached and filtered. In this process it loses other minerals. A non-caking additive is added in table salt to prevent it from clumping. In most of the table salts iodine is added for healthy functioning of thyroid. It is pure white in colour. It has a fine texture. This makes it much easier to consume more salt than required. That means when 1 tsp of table salt is compared with 1 tsp of sea salt it is observed that table salt has more sodium by volume, but contains the same amount of sodium.
Sodium in the salt helps musclesand nerves work properly by assisting muscular contraction and transmission ofnerve signals. It helps regulate blood pressure and volume. Proper amount ofsodium helps to maintain balance of bodily fluids. It also helps sustain aregular blood pH level, an important indicator of health.
Excessive sodium in the diet hasmany serious side effects. Excess sodium can lead to high blood pressureresulting in fluid build-up in people with heart problems, cirrhosis or kidneydisease. It becomes difficult for kidneys to balance sodium levels. Extrasodium causes the body to retain water, increasing blood volume and causinghypertension. Increased blood pressure can ultimately lead to heart disease,heart failure or stroke.
So whichever salt you are using, sodium intakeshould be considered first rather than any other thing.