Salt or sodium chloride is what we cannot do without in cooking. Sodium is an essential element the body needs for its fluid balance. Yet in excess, it can also upset that balance. And if you have been advised to cut down on salt or sodium for health reasons like high blood pressure, kidney or heart conditions, then it becomes a culinary challenge to whoever is cooking your food at home to reduce salt and still make the food palatable.

Under normal conditions our body requires only half a gram of sodium. But people lavish salt in foods to the point that they end up eating twenty or more times than required. Though salt requirements depend on outside weather conditions, and how much we lose through sweating, a healthy quantity is 6 grams or one teaspoon of salt. Salt or sodium chloride is only 40 % sodium. So 6 grams of salt furnishes 2400mg sodium.

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Sea salt, which can be 19 times as expensive as its humbler cousin table salt, is no healthier because both kinds are overwhelmingly sodium chloride and is just a costlier way to damage your health, say researchers.

Kay Dilley, nutritionist at Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), said: `Sea salt costs up to 19 times more than table salt. For the 55 percent of you who buy sea salt, it might be worth switching to table salt to cut your grocery bills.`

DASH diet to control blood pressure

Sea salt, routinely endorsed by celebrity chefs because of its `natural and mineral content`, is a more costly way of damaging your health, says a study commissioned by CASH, reported the Daily Mail.

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