digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Dr. Berry recommends salting food to taste rather than restricting it, arguing that adequate salt is essential for health and that salt does not cause hypertension, heart disease, heart attacks, or strokes. The speaker also says to choose naturally mined salt over artisanal ocean-evaporated or fake "Himalayan" pink salts, which can contain microplastics or be adulterated.
Key Points
- The video's seven facts about salt are: (1) salt is essential for life and optimal health; (2) eating salt does not cause hypertension and does not worsen existing high blood pressure; (3) salting food to taste does not cause heart disease, heart attacks, or strokes; (4) natural salt contains little iodine, since iodine was added to salt starting around World War One; (5) too little salt can raise blood sugar, which matters for people with prediabetes or diabetes; (6) much artisanal salt from evaporated modern ocean water may contain microplastics and nanoplastics; (7) much pink Himalayan salt sold in big box stores is adulterated or fake.
- The speaker says there are no federal guidelines on labeling "Himalayan" salt, so less ethical companies can color ordinary evaporated ocean salt pink and sell it at a markup.
- Dr. Berry claims that even people with congestive heart failure need enough salt, and says the research is clear that insufficient salt harms health.
- The bonus fact: every mammal needs salt, so pets such as cats and dogs should also get a little salt.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Dr. Berry recommends salting food to taste, including for those with congestive heart failure, prediabetes, or diabetes, and advises against very low-salt diets, which he says can worsen blood sugar.
- Dr. Berry recommends buying salt mined from deep underground rather than evaporated from modern ocean water, saying underground salt is protected from plastic pollution and nuclear contamination such as from Chernobyl and Fukushima.
- Find a salt mined from deep underground in your own continent. The speaker mentions a list of salt mines by country, and says he and his wife use Redmond's Real Salt, mined in North America under 3,150 feet of bentonite clay, which is often naturally pink and comes in several varieties.
- Eat iodine-rich foods for iodine, since natural salt has very little, as the speaker says he covers in another video.
- Give pets such as cats and dogs a little salt, since they need it for their health.
- The speaker says the salt-hypertension link is a myth that is slowly dying, though some doctors still repeat it.
- The speaker says the pink Himalayan salt risk is a lack of federal labeling standards, not an inherent property of the salt.
Bottom Line
Salt is treated in this video as a needed nutrient rather than a hazard, and the practical concern is where the salt comes from, not how much you use to taste.
