Salt And Its Uses

Salt and Its Uses

As we know, salt is the most useful resource found on earth. In Ancient
Rome, salt was used as part of the salary to the soldiers. From this, we can see that salt was as valuable as gold in the past.
In our daily life, besides making nutritious food more palatable, salt is very useful in making bakery products, canned and frozen foods. Salt is a good preservative that retards the growth of micro-organisms to make food storage possible for a long period of timie before refrigeration.
Recently, an opinion that is harmful to our health was raised by Dr.
Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr,. former comissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug
Admistration in 1981. The American Heart Dissociation, the American Medical
Association also joined the low-salt appeal. They believe that sodium salt is connected with heart disease, circulator disorder, stroke and even early death.
By many doctors and researchers are now beginning to feel that salt has gone too far. At the University of Alabama, a short-term research has been done on 150 people on the effect of the intake of salt related to high blood pressure. Result shows that those with normal blood pressure experience no change at all when placed in a extremely low salt diet, or later when salt was introduced, Of the hypertensive subjects, half of those on the low salt diet did experience a drop in blood pressure, which returned to its previous leel when salt was introduced.
Of course, these are other researcherswhgich tend to support the findings. A small Indiana study showed that when normal individuals took large amount of salt, the bolld pressure did not consistenly rise into the hypertensive range. Also, study in Israel showed that a low-calorie diet could reduce blood pressure without changing salt consumption. After viewing research statistics, we should know that salt is not exactly harmful to us. In fact, our bodies have a continual need for salt because our bodies need sodium and chloride ions each with a different task.
Chloride maintains the balance of water in cells and its environment.
It also plays a part of digestion. Sodium assists in regulating the volumn of blood and blood pressure. Also, it facilitates the transmission of nerve impulses and is necessary for heart and muscle contraction. Without this, our bodies could not function properly.