Is Pink Himalayan Salt a health food?

This is a question we have actually been asked a fair few times, and to be honest the answer is pretty straightforward. Pink Himalayan salt could be considered a health food, but so could regular table salt. Pink Himalayan salt is genuinely no better, and actually potentially worse than regular table salt. The distinctive pink colour is actually a sign of impurities, not some magic properties. The arguments for pink Himalayan salt versus regular salt are actually quite convincing, and when viewed on the surface appear to be correct, but let’s dig into this a little bit.

Firstly, salt is not necessarily bad. Salt, more specifically sodium, is a necessary component of the diet, it is a necessary component of a healthy human. We have been told for years that we need to limit our salt intake, or we will get heart disease, but this isn’t necessarily the case, especially if you are highly active. For sure, if high blood pressure is a concern, or there is a history of stomach cancer in your family, then limiting your sodium is a good idea.

You see too little salt is just as bad for our health as too much is. If you don’t eat enough veggies (or get enough potassium) then that changes everything too. As long as you are eating your vegetables, and lots of them, like we recommend, having up to ~5 grams of salt (sodium chloride) per day is perfectly fine. 5 grams of salt per day is a lot, and you could theoretically get away with even more if you did indeed eat lots of high-potassium vegetables. But I feel safe telling people that 3-5g of salt per day is the sweet spot, because although I can theorise that higher intakes are perfectly healthy when potassium/veggies are high, I know people will just read “high salt is perfectly healthy” and forget the fact I am talking about a diet that is also high in vegetables.

Too much salt is unhealthy (5+ grams per day), and it is even more unhealthy without vegetable intake being high. In the context of a high vegetable diet (0.5kg or more per day), higher amounts of salt are perfectly fine and become an inconsequential issue when you have both your diet and water intake on point.

On the point of potassium, I know people are going to use the fact I brought it up to just start supplementing with it and not actually eating more veg. But it isn’t as simple as this, and many of the other bioactive compounds in vegetables play into this issue. So no get-out-of-jail-free card, and you still have to eat your vegetables.

So forget about salt being unhealthy. In moderation and in the context of the style of dieting (calorie appropriate, relatively high protein, whole foods based with a big focus on getting lots of vegetables of all colours in every day) we recommend, salting your food is of very, very little concern. If you do have high blood pressure, or have heart disease in your family I would reduce your salt intake to the lower end of roughly 2-3g per day, but I would make a very concerted effort to get a lot of vegetables in every day.

Ok so hopefully we can agree that salt intake is perfectly fine, at least in moderation and in the context of a high vegetable intake.

 

Now to the main question, is pink Himalayan salt the best salt to buy and is it a health food?

Well to answer this, we need to go back to a statement I made earlier and didn’t actually push too hard but is actually important.

When we talk about salt, we are talking about sodium chloride. Whether we then talk about table salt, LoSalt, Celtic Sea Salt, Pink Himalayan Salt or Black Hawaiian Sea Salt, we are still only talking about sodium chloride. Everything else that makes these different salts, well different, are in fact impurities or additives.

The distinctive pink of Pink Himalayan Salt is purely due to impurities, sodium chloride is white.

The argument that this then causes is that the impurities are what are actually responsible for the health benefits. On the surface, this argument actually looks promising, as when you look at the available data on Pink Himalayan Salt (which is very sparse and almost non-existent) you see that it has 84 trace minerals. And we are all aware that minerals, along with vitamins are essential components of health! Therefore, with Pink Himalayan Salt containing so many, it must be extra good for you, right? Well not quite.

 

Some of the health benefits claimed about Pink Himalayan Salt are that it:

• Aids in vascular health
• Lowers blood pressure
• Improves blood circulation
• Promotes a stable pH balance within the cells
• Reduces the effects of ageing
• Promotes relaxation
• Prevents muscle cramps
• Increases hydration
• Strengthen bones
• Detoxifies the body of heavy metals

 

None of the specific minerals in Pink Himalayan Salt can account for these effects, especially given that the minerals contained in Pink Himalayan Salt are in such small quantities. You see it sounds really impressive to say that Pink Himalayan Salt contains 84 minerals because that seems like it is a lot of minerals to have in a food item, however it is inconsequential because the quantity of each mineral is so ridiculously low. You would most certainly not be able to boost your low intake of a certain mineral through Pink Himalayan Salt because to get to sufficient numbers you would actually have to be using way more than the 5 grams of sodium I believe to be the relatively safe maximum.

If you do wish to argue the point on the ridiculously small quantities contained in Pink Himalayan Salt, then you also have to argue that the harmful components are also in dosages high enough to be harmful. You see Pink Himalayan Salt contains numerous compounds that are actually harmful to human health, including some radioactive molecules.

 

Pink Himalayan Salt contains:

• Mercury (a neurotoxin)
• Aluminium (implicated in neurological diseases)
• Lead (a neurotoxin)
• Arsenic (a toxin)
• Cadmium (a carcinogen)
• Polonium (potentially radioactive molecule, depending on the isotope, a potent carcinogen)
• Uranium (a radioactive carcinogen)
• Radium (a radioactive carcinogen)
• Thallium (a heavy metal that is implicated in many health conditions)
• Antimony (a toxic metal)

 

I don’t for a second think these are even a consideration as potential issues to consume in the quantities contained in Pink Himalayan Salt, but if you want to argue that there are health benefits to the minuscule quantities of health-promoting minerals in Pink Himalayan Salt, then you MUST argue the compounds with deleterious health associations are also in high enough quantities to be a big issue.

There are no added benefits to Pink Himalayan Salt over the benefits of regular salt, and regular salt is technically more healthy because it doesn’t contain the other contaminants. Iodised salt or potassium-enriched salt are most definitely healthier options.

When people find out there are no added benefits to Pink Himalayan Salt, they still can’t get over their bias and claim that Pink Himalayan Salt is significantly tastier than regular salt and that’s their reason behind adding it. But this is such a subjective thing and people are actually terrible at distinguishing their thoughts from their feelings or tastes. Even the higher price of Pink Himalayan Salt will influence their perception of taste. I am not saying there isn’t a taste difference, and certainly, if you do genuinely prefer the taste of Pink Himalayan Salt and have no problem paying the extra money for it, then, by all means, do so. However, there is no real evidence that Pink Himalayan Salt is in any way better than regular table salt.

If you want to be as healthy as possible with your salt intake I would suggest buying some LoSalt and combining it with regular iodised salt, and you will get the most bang for your buck. Most people have a woefully low intake of iodine without the addition of iodised salt, and if you swap out your iodised salt for pink salt, you will likely fall into the low iodine intake range.