• Sharebar

Substance that add taste to the food, increases watery secretions in the mouth and causes burning sensation in throat, chest etc is said to be salty in taste.

Different types of salt available are: Rock salt, common salt, iodized common salt etc.
Properties:

  1. Salt is unctuous in nature and heavy to digest.
  2. It is hot in nature and also strong in action.

Functions:

  1. Salt helps in digestion of food. It makes food soft by increasing watery secretions in mouth and aids in the action of digestive juices on food. Also due to its hot nature it increases digestive fire.
  2. As it increases watery secretion in the body, it increases urinary output. Also strong and hot nature of it makes stools soft and helps in clearing bowels, prevent excessive formation of gases and avoid constipation. Hence it is useful in indigestion, flatulence, pain in abdomen etc.
  3. It also has cleansing action over tongue and improves sensation of taste. salt add taste to the food and makes it palatable and therefore is used during cooking.
  4. It is unctuous in nature and is therefore used in oleation therapy. Addition of salt to unctuous substance like ghee, oil etc helps in quick absorption and assimilation of it in the body due to its strong and hot nature.
  5. It is also used in sudation therapy due to its hot nature. Intake of salt causes increase in body temperature while externally it is used in combination with other drugs in the form of poultice to reduce pain, swelling etc.
  6. It also has cleansing action on stomach when added to drinking water and induce vomiting. Therefore it is used in purification measures like process of emesis by which excess of mucous, acid etc is thrown out of body by way of vomiting.

Overuse of it leads to:

  1. Vomiting: Excess of salt or salty substance cause vomiting instantaneously.
  2. Increased warmth: Due to its hot nature, excess use of it cause burning sensation in the body by increasing body temperature and may lead to hyper acidity, stomatitis, excessive thirst etc.
  3. Bleeding: Excess of salt may cause various blood disease due to its strong and hot nature and will lead to bleeding from different parts of body like bleeding from nose etc.
  4. edema: As it increases watery secretions in the body, overuse of it will lead to edema especially over dependent parts of the body due to failure of maintaining balance between salt retension and salt excretion.
  5. Skin disease: Excess use of salt will lead to various types of skin diseases especially psoriasis. It will also cause loss of skin tenacity and lead to early wrinkling of skin.
  6. Eye problems: Excess use of salt will lead to diminished power of vision.
  7. Bone disorders: Overuse of salt leads to degenerative changes in bones and also reduce strength and nourishment of hair-roots and hair follicles resulting in loss of hair, grey or white hair at an early age etc. It will also similarly affect teeth and lead to falling of teeth.
  8. Infertility: Excess use of it cause loss of semen both qualitatively and quantitatively and will ultimately result in infertility.
  9. Weakness: Excess of salt for longer durations reduce overall strength and vitality of the body.

Note:

  1. Use of salt should be avoided by hypertensive patients. For eg: Salted cheese, salted butter, pickle, salted chips like potato chips etc.
  2. Patients at risk of diabetes, cardiac disease, renal disease etc should avoid use of table salt. Restricted use of salt while cooking is advisable.
  3. Usually after age of forty, use of table salt during meals cold be avoided. Complete salt free diet should be only as per physician’s advice.
  4. Remember, only proper use of salt while cooking etc is beneficial to health and overuse of it during meals is not advisable as explained above.

Use of rock salt is useful to eyes and do not diminish power of vision as compared to other salts and is thus an exception to the general rule.