Skinny Salt V. Puffy Salt

I've heard it said that when trying to tone up for a special occasion, you should avoid salt and sodium. While we should definitely avoid excess amounts of sodium found in processed foods, salt is an essential mineral that can help to keep us hydrated and retain vitamins and minerals that we need to look and feel our best. So, how do we know the difference between bad salt and good salt?

Let's start with the good. Unprocessed salts, such as Himalyan, Deep Sea Hawaiian, or Celtic Sea salt contain nearly all the minerals we need to balance our bodily fluids like water and blood supply. These types of salts will actually replenish our body of necessary minerals that we lose when we sweat or we aren't receiving the right amount of electrolytes. Otherwise, we risk getting dehydrated and then our body will bloat with excess water...no thank you.

Now for the bad... Iodized salt or table salt, has been heavily processed and stripped of all it's nutritional value. Bad salts will make you puffy and bloated because they kill good bacteria in the body. They interfere with the normal absorption of water which can lead to constipation etc.

Unfortunately, most restaurants, pre-packaged foods, and especially frozen foods are filled with yucky, puffy, iodized salts... aka massive amounts of sodium. This is one reason why it's so important to make your meals yourself... you can control exactly where all your ingredients come from (including your salts). When dining out, don't be afraid to ask what kind of salt they cook with or request your meal to be served without salt.

If you haven't converted to a high quality salt yet, what are you waiting for? Good salts, like Himalayan, balance our bodily fluids (skinny) whereas bad salts really mess them up (puffy) !

PS. In pregnancy, it's particularly important to get our healthy salts to keep us from getting puffy and maintain appropriate blood supply.