http://www.livinlowcarbdiscussion.com/showthread.php?tid=367&page=1Post: #26RE: salt
MAC Wrote:
The Inuit people lived much of the year on coastal ice (which is partially desalinated sea water), and much of their food consisted of soup made with meat in a broth from this brackish source of water. When they went inland to hunt, they traditionally added caribou blood (also a rich source of sodium) to their soup. With these empirically derived techniques, the Inuit culture had adapted the available resources to optimize their intakes of both sodium and potassium."
Since I've been reading Not by Bread Alone which I hope to share with everyone very soon, I've learned so much more about the Inuit. Many researchers make statements about them without knowing the whole story. Stefansson notes in this book that there are some Inuit who did not eat caribou at all. They ate seal for the entire year. People were saying that the Mackenzie eskimos, with whom Stefansson spent much time, had good calcium because they ate bones. Their skeletons were on display in museums and it was reasonable for them to believe this. However, he states as follows:
Quote:
but there are
Eskimos who live practically exclusively on seal their whole
lives, and yet there is no indication while they live that they
are less healthy than the caribou eaters, nor do their skeletons
show a lack of calcium. Thus calcium deficiency is as
absent from those meat-eaters who practically never eat
bones as from those who eat them nearly every day of their
lives
Even the caribou eaters did not eat caribou all the time. They might have them one year and the next year, they might eat only seal.
Quote:
it can be stated simply and flatly that the man who
chews a lot of bones in a caribou-hunting year will chew no
bones at all in a sealing year
This makes my argument that we don't just get nutrients in our bodies based on what we eat. This whole notion got started when they examined people with deficiency diseases. They found them deficient in particular nutrients so therefore they assigned cause as saying that the subjects did not consume the nutrients. The truth is they only proved that certain foods can reverse the deficiency but they did not discover what caused the deficiency to begin with.
We find the same with cholesterol. Dr. Ravnskof cites studies that show that high total cholesterol serves to protect us from infection. If a person provides a lipid profile at the same time they are fighting off an infection, their cholesterol might be raised. This is in no way indicative of heart disease.
Researchers know that when a person is fighting off a disease, the body may lower its own iron levels to protect the body by keeping the illness from spreading. Adding iron by a supplement at this point would be harmful because one would be fighting against their own body. Iron is known to oxidize or "rust" things inside the body if taken beyond what the body requires.
Despite these repeated observations, we condinue to take multi-vitamins wily-nilly without regard to the nutrient balance in our bodies. We do so based on the fear that something may be missing from our "balanced diet." The whole "balanced diet" notion is a house of cards.
There is no doubt that low-fat dieters who only eat 2,000 calories or less and provide little fat for their bodies are deficient in nutrients. However, it's not because the food doesn't have the nutrients. It's because their bodies use those nutrients to process the unhealthy foods. The FDA has enriched every bit of food you can buy from candy bars to orange juice yet they still insist that people don't get enough vitamin this or that without taking into account the reason for the deficiencies. The nutrients are there but they are not being absorbed.
Taubes cited six studies in GCBC and in each of them deficiency diseases were brought on by carbohydrate-rich diets. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in animal studies as well. Deficiency diseases have never been shown on all-meat diets.
When addressing salt one should consider what causes them to be deficient in sodium or potassium. The solution may not be adding more sodium or potassium but removing those carbohydrates or perhaps even water that requires sodium or potassium to process it. If we provide too much sodium via the diet, the body may shut off its absorption of salt to compensate.
I don't konw the answer but I do know that for the last three weeks, I've been able to stretch in my bed without fear of cramping muscles and I've avoided salt.
Regards,
Charles
Nicola
