To Salt, or not to Salt

I'm sure you've seen the recent buzz about how Americans eat way too much salt. And maybe you have been reading about how hard it is to get folks to cut back. Well, OK, let's face it-salt is tasty. And, in the twenty-first century, it's cheap and available. But how can we know how much is the right amount for us? Below are some ways know if you're on the right track or if you need to adjust.

Now before we get ahead of ourselves, I want to be clear that salt is critical for good health. People have gone out of their way to get it since humans have walked the earth. Roman soldiers carried rations of the scarce mineral. (The phrase "worth his salt" came from there.) Since it's so important to us, people have a built-in craving for salt that never seems to pipe down, no matter how much of it we gobble. And gobble it we do, at least in comparison to our ancestors. Salt is so inexpensive and available now that our per capita consumption has become astronomical, compared to the old days.

The more salt you eat, the more your sense of salty taste gets blunted, so you crave ever more. Doctors have known this for a long time, but now they are getting serious about policing our ever inflating salt habit.

I agree that, as a whole, Americans eat way too much salt. As a population, we would get a much bigger bang for our buck by laying off our national salt binge. But, like all things, the devil is in the details. While the average consumption is very high, some people actually don't eat enough, some eat more than their share, and a few eat the baby bear "just right" amount to stay healthy.

Enter Ayurveda. As with all other matters, Ayurveda does not have rigid rules that apply to everyone equally. There is no ideal salt ration. But by paying attention to our own individual needs we can start to get close.

According to Ayurveda:
• Kapha people should eschew salt as much as possible. The mineral promotes water retention, and these folks (me included) have tissues that are already moist enough. No added salt for me. Or you, all you kaphas!
• Pitta people should use salt sparingly, as long as their tissues are healthy and their medical tests are A-OK.
• Vata people are encouraged to salt their food liberally, to taste. Their tissues tend to be dry, and salt helps their bodies to retain the water they need to stay moisturized, and they usually have little danger of developing high blood pressure. Also, an herbal tea that warms and helps the body stay internally moist is always a good choice for dry vatas.

Now, that all sounds good, but Murphy's Law is about to step up to the plate. Who likes salt? You guessed it. Kaphas! It helps their type of body produce hormones that support their main strong point, stamina, so they are drawn to greasy, salty chips like a moth to a flame. (Confession: guilty! Of course, I don't eat those things, or I wouldn't be able to waddle through the door after a week. But I DO want them, at least on occasion.) Instead of salt, kapha folks do better when consuming things that help dry out the tissues, like green tea.

Now, vatas, on the other hand, have thin, dry bodies-just the kind of body that our culture finds attractive for women these days. And who stays away from salt the most? Vata women. They like the feeling of a dry body with little skin oil, but this can be a sign of too little moisture.

Salt deficiency is a well known cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, which affects Vata women more than any other constitutional type. Plus, health nuts have been deriding salt for decades, so "healthy" vatas have been avoiding it, in an effort to stay well. It becomes a vicious circle. It's pretty amazing when a case of chronic fatigue is cured-voila!- but salting food.

Bottom line? On the whole, we Americans eat too much salt, but it's very individual. Vatas often do better when they salt their food liberally while the rest of us are best to avoid feeding our salty cravings.

What do you make of the new salt recommendations, and are you going to change your life to accommodate them? Let me know what you think, and we can have some salty conversation.