🎧 Podcast 78: Salt as a Mindfulness Prompt: How Everyday Moments Can Support Inner Peace

Hey Detox Warriors!

As I close a chapter on my deep detox dive into salt, I have been wanting to wrap up with honoring salt. Since I've spotlighted the hazards in salt—the microplastics and heavy metals in salt—and labeled salt as a Household Repeat Offender, I wanted to publish this episode to leave you with a balanced perspective of salt as you also consider the risks. Few things are all good or all bad including salt!

In case you're new to the term Household Repeat Offender, it's a term or category that I developed as I worked on my first book A to Z of D-Toxing. As I researched household products over 8 years as I was also writing A to Z of D-Toxing, I noticed common denominators among toxic household products. I started to view these common denominators among toxic sources as Household Repeat Offenders and noticed that my perspective on Household Repeat Offenders really simplifies my ability to recognize high-risk items with my informed common sense. So I began empowering others with Household Repeat Offenders in A to Z of D-Toxing and I help 40-Day Home Detox participants experience hunting for Household Repeat Offenders to inform commonsense and intuition. The more familiar you become with Household Repeat Offenders, the easier it is to identify sources of toxicity or high-risk items.

Since I've spotlighted salt as a Household Repeat Offender in recent episodes and in even more depth in recent blog articles, I'd like to end my deep dive into salt with this episode of gratitude for salt. Again, I hope this will leave you with a balanced and informed perspective on salt, feeling at peace with both the risks and need for salt.

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Salt has been an invaluable resource since the beginning of time. Before refrigerators were invented, salt was much more life-saving in a way than it is nowadays. Salt was used frequently to preserve meats, fish, and vegetables so food could last longer, serve more people. 

Salt is also invaluable for our bodies to stay hydrated and regulated.

And there are many other uses of salt including among religious and sacred rituals. Salt is truly sacred in the lives that it has served and continues to serve.

That it's now rare to find salt without microplastics, lead, arsenic, aluminum and cadmium should reflect to us what human choices, many of which are not fully informed or conscious, are doing to our environment.

While some heavy metals are naturally occurring, extra high levels exist in salt because of human activities. For example, it's hypothesized that salt that's just been extracted from its natural habitat and then left in open fields become more contaminated from the polluted outdoor air.

So, whenever you notice salt, remember where these salt grains come from. Some come from the sea, others from lakes, wells, or under ancient mines. I included images of where salt comes from in the blog articles that are linked in the podcast show notes to help connect you to what you're eating, to help you visualize what you may be putting in your bodies. It was really helpful for me to learn more about where salt is mined from and how it's processed.

Salt can be a trigger for mindfulness. When you notice it, think of the salt's possible exposures during the salts' journeys from their natural origins to your table top. Each serving of salt encapsulates remnants of its original home and its journey to your mouth.

That practice of awareness is a type of meditation. It reminds me of the perspective that each present moment results from the past and shapes your future. That's also true of each ingredient of what we eat and drink.

I hope you can become aware of this bigger picture of salt without judgment, guilt, anxiety, or fear. Of course, that probably won't happen right away. But as you practice salt as a tool for mindfulness, you will be practicing your ability to observe your emotions with more detachment. And that's one of the benefits of meditation. Just to observe, and acknowledge things as they are.

With this salt meditation practice, you will naturally, organically, and hopefully gently gravitate towards healthier changes. This awareness of what pollutes salt and how salt gets polluted can inspire you to remember what you can do to reduce your trail of contamination. For example, whenever you see salt, I hope it can remind you to use your reusable bags so that you don't need to accept disposable ones, to carry around your nontoxic stainless steel water bottle so that you can avoid plastic bottles, to avoid plastic straws and utensils, to cook more at home, and keep getting to know the ingredients in what you eat and drink.

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Remember the power of detoxing your salt at home. It may seem small or trivial, but it has positive ripple effects because once you detox your salt at home, you will be reducing your exposure to microplastics, lead, arsenic, aluminum, and cadmium over your lifetime. For some of these heavy metals, like lead, any exposure is harmful. And heavy metals and microplastics are accumulating in your body—your bones, organs including your brain, and elsewhere.

This small change can help delay a potential tipping point in your health. There are never guarantees and some health outcomes are genetically predetermined, but many health outcomes result from a complex interplay of genetic and nongenetic factors. And small healthy changes can help elevate your health and well-being.

So please feel rewarded for listening to this podcast and maybe even episode 76 on microplastics in salt and episode 77 on heavy metals in salt. They might help change the trajectory of your life! When you want more detailed information on salt, visit Ruan Living's blog. I'll link the related articles in the podcast show notes.

When you're ready to learn more Household Repeat Offenders, I explain them more fully in my first book A to Z of D-Toxing: The Ultimate Guide To Reducing Our Toxic Exposures, and we practice hunting six major Household Repeat Offenders in your home in 40-Day Home Detox. If you'd like my 1:1 guidance through your home detox, then learn more about my full suite of Ruan Living Offerings at www.ruanliving.com/store 

Thanks for tuning in! I welcome your questions or requested topics @ruanliving on most social media platforms or just reply to my Ruan Living newsletter. And I'd like to give special thanks to Chris Robertson for our podcast jingle. 

Until next time...

Sophia