If you haven’t been living under a rock this past decade, chances are, you must have caught up on all the hype about Himalayan Salt. It is one of the most nutritious food components, added as a condiment, in crockery, as food serving trays, as home décor (pink salt lamps and salt candle holders), and even as bricks and blocks.
What is it about pink salt that makes it so special? We’ve compiled the nutritious benefits of Himalayan pink salt and its potential health benefits.
Himalayan Pink Salt Nutrition Facts and Benefits
Why is Salt Even Important?
Salt is inarguably the life of all foods, irrespective of the dish or the cuisine made. The absence of salt results in unappetizingly bland food that is just unappealing. (Who likes food without salt?)
Salt is basically a mineral compound that mainly consists of Sodium Chloride. It can be extracted by either evaporating salt water or from salt mines around the world in the form of rock. The salt then goes through a series of industrial processes to undergo refining before it is packaged and reaches the grocery stores and then your homes.
What makes Himalayan Pink Salt Special?
Mined from the second largest salt mine in the world, located in Khewra in the Punjab region of Pakistan, it gets its name from being found in a mountainous area.
It has a peculiarly pretty faint pink color to its appearance due to the abundance of iron oxide found in it. In addition to that it has traces of minerals like:
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Potassium
- among many more.
It not only gives your food a more appealing appearance, but it also packs an even stronger flavor.
What truly sets it apart from all the other types of oil is the absence of all kinds of additives, preservatives, and chemicals in it. It truly is an all-natural product.
Chemical Composition of Himalayan Pink Salt
Chemically pink salt is 98% Sodium Chloride while the other 2% consists of around 83 trace minerals ranging from magnesium, potassium, and calcium to zinc, bromine, and europium.
The presence of all these wonderful minerals makes pink salt an ideal health upgrade that does amazing things for the well-being of your internal organs, your overall disposition, and your physical stamina. Turns out there really are perks to it being the purest salt form in the world.
What makes Himalayan Pink Salt the Better Choice?
Common table salt goes through a series of refining processes where it is bleached, purified, and then heated at high temperatures to make it consumable. As a result, it ends up losing most of its minerals.
Himalayan salt does not go through any of the above-mentioned processes, making it obviously the healthier and safer choice.
While iodine is artificially added to table salt in a difficult and unnatural processing phase. Rock salt, also known as Halite, on the other has natural traces of iodine. Additionally, the presence of anti-caking substances added to table salt makes it harder to dissolve inside our bodies.
Himalayan Pink Salt Benefits
Among the numerous health benefits of pink salt, the most prominent ones are:
- Stabilizes and balances out blood pressure in the body
- Improves osmosis in blood cells to regulate the salt concentration
- Improves the blood circulation
- Prevents muscle cramps and eases pain relating to muscle soreness
- Enhances the well-being of bones
- Helps the intestine absorb food better being a natural digestive
- Helps enhance the proper metabolic functioning
- Balances the pH of the body and reduces acid reflux
- Works as a detoxifying agent
- Slows down the aging process by flushing out heavy metals
- Reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases
Also read: Non-Dietary Benefits of Pink Himalayan Salt
Pink Salt Side Effects
Coming down to the other side of the debate, despite all the health benefits you should not forget that even Himalayan salt is mainly composed of Sodium Chloride.
Excess sodium chloride may result in numerous health conditions, the internet is full of literature to support that. In addition to that the trace minerals in pink salt only comprise 2% of its composition which isn’t enough to fulfill your body’s nutritional needs.
What sets it apart from regular salt is not its’ composition but the crystals, sizes, texture, and the way it is processed. Excess of anything is a way to the decline in overall health but when taken in moderation, pink salt nutrition can truly lead you toward a healthier lifestyle.
Conclusion
What you need to drill into your head here is that even though the nutritional value of trace minerals in pink salt isn’t high enough to make a difference, it is still better than that of table salt.
The isn’t as heavily processed as table salt and does not contain any anti-caking agents, additives, preservatives, or chemical bleaches. It truly is the purest form of salt on earth, free of any kind of toxins.
The health benefits may not seem huge but they are still enormous when compared to regular table salt. Coming from the Punjab region of Pakistan, 5000ft below the Himalayan mountain range, this pink salt is God’s gift to the culinary community of the world.
