Pakistan Himalayan pink salt.

Very often, pink salt is magnified because it contains many elements and not just sodium chloride like refined table salt. In reality, as I have explained to you, numbers in hand, there are no valid nutritional reasons for using this salt. I go mad when I hear it described as an “absolute protagonist of well-being” or with a whole series of alleged benefits (completely invented, without a shred of scientific reference) by those who are presented as a “nutritionist” (notable are the “elements of the multiplication table” At 1:23 of the video). If you search the net, you will find hundreds of articles that magnify the properties of this salt; unfortunately, sites of biologists, doctors, and nutritionists, all rigorously without a shred of scientific reference. But above all, all who repeat like a buffalo parrot of the 84 elements would serve our organism. It is even passed off as a “natural supplement”. The Italian Society of Human Nutrition reports the levels of the 15 (fifteen!) nutrients that must be consumed daily. Some others, such as Cobalt, take only in organic form (in vitamin B12), while others either their fundamental role in our organism is still debated or we need them in such small traces that they have not yet been determined. In any case, from what we know today, we do not exceed 24 elements. And the other 60 to get to the magic number 84? What are they doing? What are they for? Try asking those who continue to spread this story, and we see that they answer you.

Pink salt does contain many other things besides sodium chloride, although there is no chemical analysis published in a scientific journal that lists the mythological 84 elements. However, this feature is far from being necessarily positive as it is trumpeted and deserves further study. In the scientific literature, I found three fairly recent articles that analyze the presence of some elements. The published analyses show how the Khewra salt can contain non-negligible metals such as Copper, Zinc, Cadmium, Nickel, Manganese, Lead, Cobalt, Tellurium, Barium Aluminum and others.

Some of these, such as Copper or Zinc, in small doses, are useful for the functioning of our body. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, pink salt does not contain enough.

On the other hand, such as Cadmium or Lead (in the famous 60 which are missing to reach 84) are unnecessary and are even toxic and accumulate in the body. I will focus on just one of these for the sake of brevity.

Cadmium

Cadmium is an extremely toxic metal, which can cause kidney damage, reproductive system defects are teratogenic, and the WHO / IARC classifies it as a class 1 carcinogen. For this reason, the FAO and the WHO (Codex Alimentarius) have set at 0.5 mg/kg the maximum cadmium residue that can be present in the food salt. However, the literature’s analyses are highly variable, depending a lot on the quality and origin of the sample within the mine, with Cadmium values ​​ranging from zero to 9 mg/kg, almost twenty times the dose considered admissible. Given the existing variability, it is difficult to know the content of heavy metals in the pink salt sold in Italy. It is by no means certain that a lower red colour also corresponds to a lower concentration of the other contaminants.

In any case, given the possibility of taking small but not negligible quantities of heavy metals that can accumulate in the body without any other nutritional benefit, there is no reason to prefer this salt to be normal and practically free of heavy metals—refined white salt.

Do you have to worry if you use pink salt regularly because they gave it to you and you don’t want to throw it away, or because you believed in good faith in some barker with a white coat? According to the WHO, we can tolerate 500 micrograms of Cadmium per week. Let us consider the case of Cadmium’s most contaminated pink salt, with 9 mg/kg. By taking 5 grams per day, we are taking 315 micrograms of Cadmium per week, below the limit recommended by the WHO. So rest assured that you don’t risk poisoning.

But why should we take 500, 315 or even just 100 micrograms of Cadmium? To follow a stupid fashion?

It does not reduce hypertension, not water retention, and there are no benefits to using it. Furthermore, although not in doses to make it toxic, it contains impurities that certainly do not serve our body and which, in any case, it would be better not to take. The alternative? A good, almost pure white salt, from saline or rock salt, costs even less.

Dario Bressanini

PS I forgot, even the Himalayan salt lamps only serve to make light, not to give off “precious negative ions”. They are cute, but nothing more—no health effect.

PPS, added note given certain comments on the net: as I wrote, if you use it once in a while, obviously nothing happens. You don’t have to throw it away as if it were radioactive material 😀 I made some beautiful WHITE crystals with mine, following the refining procedure housewife that I showed you in the previous article:D

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