My Experiment With Pink Himalayan Salt

Dec 23, 2023

Recently with all this discussion about the dangers of salt I naturally got a few emails and comments that disagreed with some of my points.

For decades I have spoken of the dangers of salt consumption and so I ALWAYS get people responding like this. This is nothing new to me.

One of the most common things they say is that table salt and iodized salt is really bad (probably because of how processed it is) but stuff like Himalayan or Celtic salt are actually good for you.

Here's a comment from this recent post that pretty much says the same thing:

Corrections & New Info on "Does Salt Damage the Kidneys?

All salts are not the same. The processed table salts with or without iodine are toxic which I avoid like plague. I make use of sea salt, though, for my asthma. A nightly rinse with warm saltwater, the last thing before bed calms my bronchi and gives me restful sleep sans wheezing. You may have heard too of salt lamps and people working in salt mines that have the cleanest lungs. I know it would be ideal to get our sodium entirely from plant sources, though I feel the use of unprocessed Celtic and Himalayan salts definitely plays a role in human health. Regards

First thing I have to say here is why bother treating asthma with salt? Going on a Raw Food Diet does a tremendous job at healing asthma and removing the actual cause of the asthma. Asthma is mostly a result of eating mucus forming foods. Clean out the lungs and the asthma goes away completely.

I even had a mild form of asthma before going raw but my lungs cleaned out dramatically in the first 30 days of going 100% raw. I was contantly spitting out mucus at that time. But as a result I was able to breathe a lot more deeply.

Getting back to the salt issue. I have had salt many times at raw food restaurants and at potluck gatherings over the years. And the results are always the same. I get immediate problems as a result of doing so.

So I figured I'd better be sure. Maybe if I used something like a high quality Pink Himalayan salt that I would not experience the internal burning and dehydration issues I have experienced many times before.

So many people believe that these salts are the ones that are really good for you. So I figured why not buy myself a tiny bottle of this Pink Himalayan salt and give it a try on a raw recipe or two. And then let me see what I feel and experience.

The key here is that I do NOT regularly use salt. Hence, my body has no protections built up against the corrosive action of salt. If I were eating salt every day for a week or a month, I might not notice the same problems.

Why?

Because my body has had to make some emergency changes since it realizes that toxic salt is being consumed on a daily basis. It puts up protective measures in an attempt to lessen the damage from the sodium. But this is never full protection. And likely your ability to absorb other nutrients decreases somewhat due to your body's protective action against regular salt consumption.

But since my body is salt free I could really feel if this Himalayan salt was going to give me any problems or not.

So I did my test a couple of nights ago on December 20, 2023.

I added the salt to two of my raw dinner recipes. And then I noted the things I felt as a result.

The first thing I added it to was a raw guacamole recipe. I added about 2.4 grams of the Pink Himalayan salt.

When I tasted the recipe I thought to myself, wow this tastes pretty good. I enjoyed the salty flavor.

But I also immediately felt different inside. Like something was wrong in my body. I felt extra stimulated. I could feel the salt inside of me. It just made me feel weird.

I also noticed that the salt seemed to influence or change my mood. Below are my notes on this as it was happening.

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December 20, 2023

Earlier this evening I bought Pink Himalayan salt to see if it was safe or not for me to consume.

Here’s what I’m noticing.

My eyeballs started bulging within about 20 minutes of eating just 2.4 grams of salt in my guacamole recipe.

Then later I added another 1.2 grams to my Pizza Stew - Savory Veggie Stews recipe. I must say that in about 20 years of making Savory Veggie Stews I don't ever remember adding salt to them.

https://savorystews.rogerhaeske.com/

Soon after eating this my body just felt different. Eventually I started feeling some mild burning in my digestive tract.

December 21, 2023 10:49 AM - My body still feels weird and my eyeballs still feel pressure in them or are bulging. This is about 14 hours after consuming the Pink Himalayan salt last night.

I ended up eating 153% sodium for the day with 88% coming from the Himalayan salt.

I am quite sure this is much less salt than what I would have typically consumed at a dinner meal at a Raw Food Restaurant. So I actually went fairly easy on the salt.

NOTE: I still feel the bulging eyeballs 17 hours after having started consuming Himalayan salt.

I still feel a bulging sensation in my eyes at 20 hours since I started eating Himalayan salt, though it is starting to diminish.

Just checked again and I'm still feeling the eye bulge almost 24 hours after having first ingested the salt.

Still feeling the eye bulge 27 hours later.

27 hours later and now I'm getting a minor headache just above and behind my right eye. This is definitely not normal for me. Almost certainly this has to do with me detoxing the salt out of my system. I haven't had a headache like this in years. Now I feel it pulsing. This lasted about 45 minutes. It was no big deal but I definitely felt it.

Eating the salt definitely made me thirsty and therefore was dehydrating me. I wanted to consume a lot more juicy fruit than normal. I felt this effect of wanting more fluid inside of me even way past 24 hours when I started eating the salt.

12.22.23 6:58pm Update

I still can feel my eyeballs bulging and have felt it multiple times today. This is crazy. It’s almost 48 hours since I first consumed the Pink Himalayan salt.

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So that was my experiment. From my perspective even the Pink Himalayan salt was quite damaging to my body. And I felt this damage from only an 88% supply of my daily sodium needs.

Like I said, I did not consume a lot of this salt. Just a relatively little amount (even the initial 2.4 grams) was enough to burn my body and cause my eyeballs to bulge.

All of my raw food friends who stopped consuming salt and then went to raw restaurants where they add salt like crazy to recipes noticed similar problems. I have written about this many times over the years.

This first time I heard of this was from my Raw Food Mentor. He told me that his eyeballs were bulging after a raw restaurant meal. And then later he told me how he could feel the salt burning him inside his body.

I have had the same experience many times myself. Luckily these days I don't live close to any raw restaurants. And so I rarely consume salt.

And I definitely will NOT be finishing my small bottle of Pink Himalayan salt. I just have NO desire to continue using it. Because the next night I made a salsa recipe but without adding salt.

And you know what? I actually liked the flavor better without the salt. Having salt in a recipe makes it so that it is much harder to taste anything but the salt. Plus my body just felt so much better not having it in there.

I had no thought of, "boy this recipe needs salt." The way I made my version of this salsa recipe was deliciously salty anyway (due to savory and sodium rich raw food ingredients) without the need to add salt of any kind.

Yes, I found that the Himalayan salt flavor is so strong it actually overpowers the taste buds. I was actually relieved that I was not going to be adding salt again to my recipes. And it really tasted super delicious without the salt anyway.

To me the recipe tasted better without the salt because I could taste a lot more of the different flavors in it since the salt wasn't there overpowering my taste buds.

So the results of my experiment are pretty much the same. Whether I eat super processed table salt or less processed Pink Himalayan salt it makes no difference whatsoever. They both burn the cells of my body, make my eyeballs bulge for at least 27 hours and make me extra thirsty because the salt is dehydrating me.

There is just no way to have radiant health if you are dehydrated. And salt is proven to dehydrate the body severely.

Hence, I cannot recommend Himalayan or Celtic or Real Salt. They are all mostly sodium chloride or NaCl and that is what is severely damaging to the body.

Your sodium needs should be met through plant foods not through salt crystals.

What are your thoughts? Please share in the comments.

Youth Guru

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