My guest today is Darryl Bosshardt, who is in charge of sales and marketing at Redmond Incorporated, makers of Real Salt and Earthpaste Toothpaste. We’ll be talking about different types of salt and how they help or harm your health. Darryl is passionate about healthy living, healthy eating, and life-long learning. After growing up working for his family’s salt and mineral business (Redmond, Inc.) in Utah, he earned a Bachelors of Science degree at Southern Utah University and an MBA at Western Governor’s University before returning as a third generation family member at Redmond. In his spare time Darryl enjoys the outdoors, hiking, fishing, canyoneering, beekeeping, and just about anything else he can get is hands on. debralynndadd.com/debras-list/real-salt

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
The Right Type of Salt is Good For You

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Darryl Bosshardt

Date of Broadcast: November 28, 2014 (April 07, 2014)

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and how to live toxic-free. We do that because there’s toxic chemicals all around in the world today, but they are not everywhere. There are actually a lot of things that we can do to reduce, minimize, eliminate our exposures to toxic chemicals in every aspect of our lives. And so we talk about where the toxic chemicals are, how you can identify them and what you can do instead of being exposed to them.

Today is Monday, April 7th 2014. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida where the sun is shining and it’s a beautiful spring day. And today, we’re going to just talk about salt.

Actually, all week this week, we’re going to talk about food except tomorrow. I didn’t plan it that way. It’s just the guest are live whenever they’re available. And so sometimes, I just ask someone to be on the show and they’ll say, “Well, I can only show up on this date” or I ask them to be on a specific date and I just take them when they could come. So that’s the way it is this week. It’s that we’re having three talking about food.

Food is an extremely important thing because we can ingest a lot by eating the wrong foods and also, some foods themselves can be toxic. That’s one of the things we’re going to be talking about today. We’re going to talk about salt. All we’re going to talk about on this show is salt because it’s a big, big issue.

We’re exposed to salt. Well, if you eat any processed food, if you eat on restaurants, you’re exposed to toxic salts. I’m going to explain that right after I introduce my guest. And so it’s really about choosing the right kind of salt that will nourish your body instead of the toxic salt that can make you sick.

My ugest today is Darryl Bosshardt who’s from Redmond Incorporated and they make real salt. You probably have seen that on the shelf in your natural food store or have tried it yourself or know somebody who has. It’s been around for a long time. And it’s really salt. It’s not an industrial product.

Hi, Darryl. How are you?

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Good, Debra. Thanks for having me on today. Can you hear me okay?

DEBRA: I can hear you okay. Now, first, I want to say that Darryl has been on before. He was here talking about the toothpaste that his company makes called Earthpaste. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and look in the archives and listen to that show too. But today, we’re going to be talking about the salt that the produce.

Darryl, why don’t you tell us something about your background? I know that some people have already heard it who heard your other show, but you come from a family where your family has been producing salt products for a very long time. So tell us about that.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yeah! So I grew up in central Utah. Back in the 1950s, my grandfather and his brother, their farm wasn’t doing all that well, but they knew there was salt underneath their farm because there was a little outcropping of salt [inaudible 00:04:10] south of their farm that the American Indians had mined or harvested long before the settlers came into the valley. And so they knew the salt was there and the farm wasn’t doing so well.

And so they moved the cornfield out of the way and right there in the center of the farm, they started harvesting these natural sea salt from an ancient seabed that had been laid down during the Jurassic era, started selling it primarily to local farmers for their cows and livestock and sheep and what-not and of course, eating it themselves as well.

And what the farmers found is their animals did so much better on this natural mineral sea salt from this ancient seabed than they were doing from some of the processed current ocean salt that were being imported into the area. And so yeah, that’s kind of how it got started.

And then a few years later, a nutritionist from New York came through. I think he was visiting the Grand Canyon or something. And as he came through, he noticed this salt. We didn’t think much of it, but a few months later, we started getting phone calls from New York looking for salt. We said, “Hey, that’s great. Yeah, we’ve got this salt here. Is it for your farm or for your farm?” They said, “Actually, no. There’s this nutritionist who said that the salt out of your deposit there is the healthiest salt around and we need to be all using this salt.”
And so we got a copy of this article and sure enough, that’s what he had said. And so we sat around as a group and said, “What do we call this salt? It’s not [inaudible 00:05:40] salt. It’s not fake salt. It’s just ‘real’ salt’ and the name stuck. And so that’s the name that we’ve been using for the sea salt or the natural food salt brand of this ancient sea bed salt that we’ve been harvesting since the late 50s.

DEBRA: That’s such a great story. So now, I would like to explain to our listening audience the difference between your salt and the salt that is in practically every salt shaker on the planet. What it is is just regular salt that you just buy, table salt is actually a processed, industrial chemical. What happens is that this salt like Darryl has, his family is selling is in the ground or it’s in the sea. Wouldn’t you say that the salt that’s underground is the same as the salt in the sea because it originally came from the sea and it’s an underground deposit of sea salt, right?

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yeah, that’s a great question. And because of that, today, the term ‘sea salt’ or salt in general is a bit confusing and part of that is that any salt, really regardless of how it’s produced can be defined as ‘sea salt’ because it comes from sea bed at one point. It might be the Dead Sea like the Dead Sea in Israel or some other dead seas around the world. It might be from a dead sea like the Great Salt Lake here in Utah. It might come from a current ocean like the San Francisco Bay or the Gulf of Mexico or it may come from an ancient seabed or a seabed that was trapped eons ago.

And so sea water though occurs with many complex chlorides. You go out to the ocean today and find a great, clean spot in the ocean and you take that water, you’re not going to have just pure sodium and chloride. You’re going to have some complex chlorides in there, many minerals actually, things like potassium chloride, calcium chloride, magnesium, sodium, zinc all in trace amounts and varying amounts. There’s other minerals there besides just pure sodium and chloride.

Unfortunately, the industry knows that. If I were a farmer and I had a cow and I was going to milk this cow, I could sell you the cream off of this gallon of milk for top dollar, this cream that you could use to make butter and ice cream and whatever else. And then I’m going to take this leftover milk after I’ve already taken all the cream off and sell it as a full gallon of milk.

As a farmer, that makes a lot of sense because economically, I just pretty much doubled the amount of money that I can get off that gallon of milk. If I take the gallon of milk, sell you the cream for top dollar and I sell the remaining white substance that used to be milk leftover, well I’ve just really increased my sales.

Well, salt companies do the same thing. And if you look at a lot of the operations around the San Francisco Bay or the Gulf of Mexico or these other places where the salt is produced, they use a series of evaporation ponds or they use solution mining and then they pull the salt up. And then they’ll take out the magnesium chloride. They’ll take out the potassium chloride. They’ll take out the magnesium chloride, potassium chloride and calcium chloride. Those are the main three they’ll take off. They can sell those to industry and they can still sell the remaining sodium chloride left over for normal salt.

The problem is the body need those other minerals and elements to offset sodium.

And so that’s the first real problem with many salts on the market, whether it has ‘sea salt’ on the label or not, finding out if the salt has been processed at all. It’ll be like buying an orange after the vitamin C has been taken out and selling it as a whole natural orange.

Sometimes, you’ll hear words like ‘living’ or that natural salt is alive. And salt, seawater is not technically alive, but in a natural state, it’s much more living than after you take all the other minerals out, you expose it to high temperatures to drive out moistureand then you add a series of chemicals to it that the body doesn’t recognize the natural salt like it did when it’s coming from its natural deposit be it a current ocean, an ancient seabed or a dead sea.

DEBRA: Yes. My basic thing is that life is one big system and our bodies are part of this big system of nature. All the minerals and plants and everything is all part of nature and that our bodies really have been created to be nourished by all these things that are in danger.

I’ll continue on with that thought after the break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Darryl Bosshardt and we’re talking about salt. So we’ll come back, stay tuned.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Darryl Bosshardt from Real Salt. We’re talking about the difference between real salt and the salt that you get in the salt shaker.

What I was saying before the break is that we live in a system where it’s a whole system of living things that our bodies are all tied in to this system. Everything that’s in the environment are the things that our bodies are designed to eat. And when you take something like real salt, which is part of the earth and you eat that, then our bodies know how to recognize it. When you take the salt from wherever it’s coming from in the earth and put it through an industrial process where there is as Darryl said all kinds of heat and you remove all the other co-factors that are surrounding it, the sodium chloride and you end up with just this pure sodium chloride, which is really a processed, industrial chemical. You put that in your body, your body doesn’t know what to do with it. It doesn’t recognize it. It’s just is the same as putting any other industrial chemical in your body and it can be just as toxic.

And so when people talk about the health effects of eating salt like high bloodpressure and things like that, it’s your body’s normal reaction to eating something that shouldn’t be there in the first place. That’s my opinion.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: And what’s interesting, Debra, I think it’s more than just an opinion because I think probably almost all of the listeners have heard that salt is bad for us, whether it was on TV or the mayor of New York or maybe even your own cardiologist or something has said salt is bad.

And before I make this next statement, I do want to say I’m not a doctor, I’m not practicing medicine and I’m not making any claims here. But what’s interesting is any time you have somebody say, “Hey, salt is bad for you,” but yet the first thing that’s going to happen when you go to the hospital or the EMTs or paramedics picks you up and haul you to the hospital, they’re going to hook you up to an IV. This IV they’re going to hook you up to isan IV of salinesolution, which is salt water.

In fact, any IV other than salt water would be disastrous. If they hook you up to an IV of distilled water or an IV of Coca-Cola or an IV of anything, even an IV of spring water, it’s going to be disastrous to the body. That IV has to be a saline solution and 99% of the time, that saline solution is going to be primarily sodium and chloride.
There are a few examples where you might get a potassium chloride-based IV, but for the most part that’s going to be a sodium and chloride-based IV with some other electrolyte.

And so it’s interesting you hear salt is bad for you, but yet your body will not function without salt. And without salt, you actually will die. And so the key is eating the right salt in the right amount that then can balance the body like the IV in the hospital versus destroy the body like some of the processed, chemical salts that we hear so much about.

DEBRA: Yes, I would agree with you on that. I was just looking at some articles online during the break. I read a lot about salt and I’ve changed from – I mean, obviously, I think most people – well, I know for myself, I was born just into our normal American way of doing things and so I ate a lot of processed salt in my life until I started learning about the health effects of eating that kind of salt and I switched over to eating natural salt like yours.

I’ll just say that I’ve been eating your Real Salt since you’ve been on the show with me some months ago and I love it! I love it, I love it. My body loves it. I really love your garlic salts. I put that in my salad every day.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: You know, not to change the subject there, but because you did mention our seasoning line, something that I think is really fun about that, not only does the natural salt good for you, but it also actually taste a whole lot better.

DEBRA: It does, it does.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: And the seasonings is a good example of that. A lot of your seasonings today will have things like MSG added [inaudible 00:18:26]. There’s all kinds of fillers and stuff that are added. There are a lot of seasoning salts on the market.

And one of the reason that you add MSG is it’s a flavor enhancer. But if you have a natural salt like the Real Salt and then you add some natural, organic freeze dried garlic to it, you can get a flavor profile that’s absolutely amazing…
DEBRA: It is…
DARRYL BOSSHARDT: …with ingredients that’s just natural, ancient sea salt and organic freeze dried garlic. You don’t have to add all those other fillers in there and you still have an amazing, tasty and healthy product.

DEBRA: Well, I can vouch for that. Now, I’m somebody who really likes food. I enjoy cooking, I enjoy eating food, I want it to taste good. But when I first started eating natural salt with all the minerals in it, it actually has a flavorto it instead of it just being – I find table salt now to be really harsh. But there’s a gentleness – I don’t quite know how to describe it. There’s just a gentle salt-ness, there’sa mineral-ness to it that enhances the flavor of the food. It does make the flavors of the food itself taste more alive.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yeah.

DEBRA: I mean, anybody who’s interested in having food that tastes good should immediately switch to natural salt because it does make your food taste better.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: And there’s actually two reasons for that, quite scientific reasons. The first is that if you have a traditional table salt or traditional sea salt that’s almost 100% sodium and chloride that’s been refined and heated and things like that, you’re tasting that very sharp flavor. But a lot of your natural salts, whether you buy the Real Salt – which of course, I’m a little biased towards. But there’s also other good brands. Another favorite I have is a brand called Celtic from the Grain of Salt Society.

DEBRA: I love that too.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: I know the owner of that company. Her name is Selena, she’s a wonderful lady. Great product. Or the Himalayan Salt that comes out of Pakistan.

DEBRA: I like that too.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: That’s also a good product line. With any of those, in addition to the sodium and chloride, you have about 2.5% to 3% trace mineral that’s included in the sodium and chloride. Those trace minerals help soften that sodium bite that you get if it’s 100% pure sodium and chloride that’s been refined.

So there’s other trace minerals – potassium, magnesium, calcium, selenium. They do soften the flavor quite a bit. And actually, the reason that there are some difference in taste versus the Celtic and the Himalayan and Real Salt, they all have about the same number of minerals, but those ratios can be a little off. And so the Himalayan generally tastes a little more earthy. Ours has a little sweeter flavor to it. The Himalayan has a little higher sulfur content, which is good, but it just has that little bit of flavor difference.

So that’s the first aspect. And then I’m not sure if we have time to go into the additives.

DEBRA: Well, actually, you know what? Let’s take a break and then we’ll go into the additives in salt when we come back.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Darryl Bosshardt from Real Salt and that is I believe RealSalt.com. You can go to their website and find out all about their salt. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Darryl Bosshardt from Real Salt. Before the break, we were about to about additives in salt. So tell us about those, Darryl.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yeah! So in addition to the fact that a lot of the salts have been stripped of many of their minerals. And that alone can make the salt bitter.
One of the things that can impact that flavor (not only the flavor, but also the help) is that there are a number of additives that are typically added to salt and added to sea salt. Again, I want to keep driving that point home because I think sometimes consumers – and rightly so, if they go to a health food store or their grocery store, they have heard that sea salt is better. So they’ll pick up a ‘sea salt’. But again, if you look at the back of that sea salt, that can have just as many or more additives than a lot of your table salt. So the term ‘sea salt’ doesn’t mean what it used to mean.

But some of the additives that are added to salts today are things like sodium bicarbonate. Now, that’s just baking soda, not too bad. But there’s also some kind of mean ones. One of the standard ones that are added is something called ‘yellow prussiate of soda’.

DEBRA: What is that? I’ve never heard of that. I’ve never heard of that. What is it?

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Sometimes, at the back of a salt canister, you will see that listed as ‘anti-caking agent E535’. And if you Google search ‘yellow prussiate of soda’ or ‘anti-caking E535’, the chemical name for that is actually sodium ferrocyanide. That’s actually a very common additive in many salts.

Some brands that I can mention here have that you probably are very aware of. And the problem with sodium ferrocyanide, that’sreally sodium, iron and cyanide and that’s a very strong toxin to the body in that combination. in fact, there’s an MSDS material safety data sheet on all of these chemicals that are added to salt. And sodium ferrocyanide is a pretty mean one. It’s known to cause all kinds of problems.

Now, the reason that’s approved as a salt additive is it’s in trace amounts and in those trace amounts, one dose isn’t probably going to hurt you immediately. But as many of your listeners on a toxic radio program would be aware of, that can accumulate over time or daily exposure to something like sodium ferrocyanide is not something you want to be shaking on your eggs or your celery or your cucumbers or your tomatoes on a daily basis.

DEBRA: No, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t, not at all.

Daryll: So the reason that we add – we don’t, but the reason a lot of salt companies will add these other chemicals to salt is salt by nature is hygroscopic. Hygroscopic is kind of a fancy chemistry word that means ‘absorbs moisture’. It’s kind of like a dehumidifier. And because of that, salt will tend to get lumpy or sticky or damp if it’s left to its own devices.

DEBRA: Well, I have experienced that with natural salt. It just kind of sticks in the salt shaker. But what I do is I just kind of bang it on the counter and embrace it or another thing good people do is that they put rice or something in with the salt. I’ve seen that in restaurants that the salt shakers and the sugar containers have rice mixed into them to keep them from caking.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: And either of those options are much better than putting a little bit of sodium ferrocyanide in with your salt.

And so another common additive that’s put in in many salts – and if you are at home, listener, go ahead and open your kitchen cupboard and grab your shaker of salt or your canister of salt and flip that over and kind of see what ingredients are listed if any (hopefully, there’s not).

But another one you’ll often see is one called sodium silicoaluminate. Now, that is somewhat similar to the anti-perspirant agent that’s added in anti-perspirant. It’s an aluminum-based chemical there. It’s a water repellant, anti-moisture, which is why it’s in an anti-perspirant. And again, if you take two licks of your anti-perspirant in the morning before breakfast, I’m sure you have some water retention, some blood pressure issues. And yet we shake this onto our food a couple of times throughout the day and we wonder why salt has gotten this bad rep.
DEBRA: Well, it’s not necessarily the salt. It’s salts and toxic chemicals. Now, one of the things that keeps coming up in articles about salt is they’re talking about ‘excessive salt’. I think that doctors are always wanting you to lessen your salt intake, but I think what they’re talking about is people who are eating a lot of processed foods are eating a lot of salt because those foods have a lot of salt in them. But that doesn’t mean that if you’re not eating processed foods that you shouldn’t be eating salt. As you said before, salt is vital to being alive.

So do you have some advice – again, not being a doctor, but do you have some advice about how much salt our bodies need on a daily basis?

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yeah, that’s a great question. And the resource that I know – there’s two great books. If any of your listeners would really like to get the full story on salt, two books that I would highly recommend, one was written years ago by a doctor named Batmanghelidj. His book was called ‘Your Body’s Many Cries for Water’.

DEBRA: I love that book.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: He had another one called ‘You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty’. That was excellent as well. In his book, one of the things that he talks about is adding a quarter teaspoon of salt to every quart of water that you drink. And part of that – it’s kind of a fun discussion. If you went in to the hospital today and you wanted one liter of saline solutionbecause you’re a little bit dehydrated or you’re not feeling well or for any reason you walk in the hospital, they’re going to hook you up to an IV of saline solution, that liter, when you get your bill back from the hospital is going to be probably several hundred dollars for that one liter of solution, which is basically about a quarter teaspoon of salt in a quart of water. And so you could save yourself a lot.

And in Dr. Batmanghelidj’s book, he recommends that you salt your food liberally – natural salt, of course – and then for every quart of water that you’re drinking throughout the day, you add a quarter of teaspoon of salt to that quart of water.

DEBRA: In addition to the salt that you put on your food?

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yes, in his book, uh-huh.

DEBRA: Wow! Because I do drink water by the quart. If you were here, you would see that I have quart glass bottles of water that I fill with my filtered water that I filter at home and it’s just always on my desk. I’m sitting here all day long. I probably drink through four quarts of water as I’m sitting here working especially in the summer, especially in Florida.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yeah, and that’s really important. I think one thing that Dr. Batmanghelidj points out in his book, he says that probably almost everybody – and there are probably some exceptions to that, you sound like you may be one of those is that we’re walking around dehydrated. And in his book, and others have said that at a minimum, we should probably be drinking about half our body weight in ounces because you perspire…

DEBRA: At a minimum, yeah.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: You urinate, you cry, you sweat and all of that. Your tears are salt water, your sweat is salt water, your urine is salt water. And so you are burning through salt all the time throughout the day. And on days particularly on hot summer days if you’re out working in the yard or out running or doing whatever, you are burning through at least about a gram of salt every hour. And if you don’t replace that, you’re going to start to have issues.

DEBRA: I hate to interrupt you because – I need to interrupt you, but that is an excellent point because we talk about losing water, but we don’t talk much about losing salt. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest is Darryl Bosshardt and we’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Darryl Bosshardt of Real Salt and that’s RealSalt.com. I eat their salt every day. I also eat some other salts, but I do eat Real Salt every day. I especially like the garlic salt like I said. They have a seasoning salt and an onion salt. It’s their wonderful salt mixed with organic ingredients. And just the salt by itself is really great as well. You can go find out more about it at their website.

I was thinking, I thought it would make a wonderful gift if you’re ever wanting to give somebody a gift who likes food, instead of their seasoning salt, I think it would be a great thing. I remember, one Christmas, I introduced everybody I knew to organic oranges. And just having a new taste sensation, people really liked that. I think it would make a great gift. I’d be very happy to get that as a gift.

Anyway, so before the break, we were talking about how to replenish your salt needs from drinking a lot of water or heat or just the things that our bodies do every day like crying and sweating and things like that. I just wanted to repeat that because I think that’s a really, really important thing. I know I’m sitting here drinking four quarts through, four quarts of water a day as I’ve said, but I do put a lot of salt on my food – not tons of salt, but a nice sprinkle. I would say that each of my meals have some nice sprinkle of salt. Does that sound about right?

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yeah, I think the important thing is listening to your body talk, listening to what your body’s needs are. Everybody is going to have a different need obviously. Somebody that’s a marathon runner is going to be burning through a lot more salt and a lot more fluid than maybe somebody like me who is in a desk unfortunately more often than I’d like to admit. We each have different needs.

And there’s another great book. I’ve mentioned Batmanghelidj’s, there’s another one that was written by an MD who actually practices up in Detroit. He’s a great natural MD. His name is Dr. David Brownstein. His book is called ‘Salt: Your Way to Health’.

DEBRA: Yes, another great book.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Just the title seems so dramatically different from what we hear that salt is going to give us all these health problems and here’s an MD who’s actually prescribing salt to his patients and helping them – as he says in his book “salt their way back to health.” But again, it’s the right kind of salt and in the right form.

Like you pointed out before , if you’re eating a lot of processed foods, you’re getting so much processed salt with that that your body is going to have some overload issues not only maybe with the processed salt there, which is the small ingredient, but just the processed food in general is going to link to many health problems as a whole.

DEBRA: Yes. Now, I want to make sure – I have a question and I want to make sure we get to it. And we’re getting to the end of the show, so I’m going to ask you right now. First, I’ll say if you want to know that you have pure salt with nothing else in it, you can of course buy Real Salt and know that you’re going to get that. You can buy Himalayan Salt, the original Himalayan Salt and know you’re going to get that. You can buy Celtic Sea Salt and know that you’re going to get that.

But so often, especially in the natural food store, it will say ‘sea salt’ on the label. We can’t really know what that sea salt is. And so could you tell us more how it might not be the kind of salt that you’re talking about that you sell?

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yeah, you know there’s really just about three questions that a consumer would need to ask themselves when they go buy salt. I would suggest these same three questions could be used almost for anything you’re ever going to purchase. The first one is know who’s actually producing it.

So often today, the traceability in our food becomes difficult if not impossible. And if there’s a way to know the person is actually producing these or has the farm that’s raising the eggs, I would much rather buy from somebody local or someone that I actually can see their chickens and know they’re free-range and know they’re not being treated with all kinds of stuff than just getting them in some blank, generic box out of a grocery store.

Adn so I always encourage people to find out who’s producing it. That can be a little difficult with some products; salt being one of those. You walk in. If you buy a store brand or some just generic brand, it’s kind of hard to know where that salt is coming from.

And you see that with the Himalayan today. Unfortunately, you walk in the stores and now, there’s all kinds of different brands of Himalayan. It kind of makes it hard to know who is processing the salt correctly, who’s not using explosives and who’s not using child labor and things like that.

And so I would always encourage first off to buy from a company that you can find out and know and trust. Do a little research and find out. And whether you use the original Himalayan salt, the Celtic, Real Salt, those are three brands that I use and I trust all three of those. That would be the first thing.

The second question would be to find out what they’re taking out of the salt. And it’s kind of hard to see that on a label sometimes, but you can find out if there are other minerals in the salt or if it’s pure, refined or processed.

And if the salt pours out of the shaker and it’s perfectly 100% identical beady crystals, you know that’s not the way that occurred in nature. Typically, salt should have some variation in crystals, should all look a little bit different, should look unique, more like snowflakes than like these manufactured beady product.

And then after you find out if they’ve taken anything out or if they’ve heated it, put it through a kiln, furnace, find out if they’ve added anything back to it. Find out if they’ve tried to make it look pretty and to flow smooth by adding some of these chemicals we’ve talked about today.

I think if you know your source, find out what they’re doing to it, if they’ve taken anything out or putting anything back in, you’ll end up with some great products. And that would apply both for toothpaste, for salt, for any food item that you’re purchasing or even topically going to be using for yourself or for your family.

I think those are three great questions that could lead you most of the time to clean, quality products that you could feel good about using for yourself and your family.

DEBRA: I completely agree with you. And see, this is one of the reasons why I invite people like you to come be on the show so we can get to know you.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Well, I appreciate you having me on.

DEBRA: You know, every time I use your salt, I do think of you. I think of our interview and I remember what you said about the salt and it just is nice for me in the same way that I know the woman who made my bed and I know that sheep that gave their wool to put in my mattress and things like that.

So I completely agree with you. It makes a big difference t know that and I know your integrity and your intent. And so when I put your product on the shelf, then I know, I can recognize it. It’s not advertising. It’s not because I saw a commercial on TV. It’s because I talk to you.

And I think that’s how transparent all products should be. That’s what I think. And I think it would be a better world if we had that.

So one other thing I wanted to say though is that if you see the word ‘sea salt’ not necessarily on a brand of salt because you can go into a store and it’ll say ‘sea salt’ on the salt package and it may have other things in it. But then when you go that next step like pasta sauce and it says ‘sea salt’ on it, there’s just no way for us to know I think because the manufacturers – even if you called the manufacturer (that sounds funny, call the manufacturer of the food), the manufacturer of a pasta sauce, they’re going to say, “Well, we just bought sea salt in a 55-gallon drum and they don’t know anything about it.”

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: Yeah, that is a bit unfortunate. And I don’t know if you’re – there are a few companies that aredoing a little bit better about disclosing those ingredients. And if a manufacturer is just looking to put sea salt on their label, chances are they’re going to buy unfortunately the cheapest, most lightly processed sea salt that they could find just because they want to put it on their label, not because they really care about the food.

One company though – and maybe you’re familiar with them and maybe they would be potential guest for you next time is a company called ‘One Degree Organic’. It’s a really kind of a neat company. They’re an organic and vegan product line. They’ve got breads and cereals and things like that. But when you buy their product, there’s a little barcode on the back, you can scan it and it will bring up a little video that shows you the quinoa farmer in Mexico and shows you the grape producer…

DEBRA: Oh, great!

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: …and a little video of them talking about why their grapes or why their quinoa – it’s a neat company. It’s called One Degree Organic. I can send you the company’s name.

DEBRA: Oh, please do.

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: …and maybe have them on your show. It’s a really neat concept.

DEBRA: I’ve seen that on some kind of products, not food products. I had someone on where he was making yoga mats in a very unique way in India. His site has – and I’ve forgotten the name off the top of my head, but it’s in the archives. His site has a video and pictures of the peopleactually making the mats. You see them where they actually are in India, weaving them. It’s that kind of information I think we should have for every product so that we know.

We’ve only got about a minute left, so is there any final words that you want to say that we haven’t covered?

DARRYL BOSSHARDT: No. You know, I appreciate you having me on. I do think that salt is a very important topic and one that can make a big difference. The book ‘Salt: Your Way to Health’ is a great place to start I think to understand the importance of salt. And if I can leave with just anything, it would be to not write off salt and not be scared of salt.

Now, there are some with maybe some salt sensitivies or kidney issues. That’s going to change this discussion entirely, but for the most part, we with Dr. David Brownstein, most of us should be salting our way back to health with the right kind of salt and good, clean water.

DEBRA: Thank you so much for being here today. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. My guest has been Darryl Bosshardt from Real Salt and that’s RealSalt.com. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio and you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and listen to this show again or listen to any of the other past shows. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.