This question was asked in the Raw Paleo Forum: Do you liberally use salt or do you follow Loren Cordain’s advice and stay away from it? Experienced any benefits from adding it to food (better digestion, etc)?
This was my answer.
For the past 1+ year I’ve been eating raw paleo with zero salt. I drink coconuts and get hydration from fruits. I actually don’t look for salt.
2 weeks ago when my son went for a checkup with a new doctor who is a raw weston price dieter, he recommended salt to my boy. My boy is a cooked food eater, he eats some raw meat with me.
So here I am the parent who needs to try out this salt thing because the doctor ordered it on my boy. I noticed the past 1 week I did a lot of salt on my meat, I didn’t enjoy it. It felt like work and I felt blah. I can handle “some” minute quantities of salt, but not a lot of it. I did try lemons + salt on my oysters and that combination tastes good. But when I dip my oysters in vinegar, I don’t like salt on it.
When I do partake in cooked meat, I think the salt helps somewhat. But when the meat is fully raw it seems really strange to put salt in it. I tried a salt rub on beef one time and I totally did not like it. My little girl likes dipping raw beef in the pools of blood that collect on the plate.
My theory is if you eat bloody meat and hydrating fruits, you get fully hydrated. If you must drink plain water, then you need salt with it because plain water is badly utilized. If I’m forced to drink water I squeeze lemon or calamansi and probably add raw honey to make juice.
See the Water Cure website to measure the amount of salt you need with the amount of plain water you drink. This is for water drinkers. http://www.watercure2.org/
For non-water drinkers like myself and barefoot and charlotte gerson, maybe we don’t need salt. But I’m open to adjust. Maybe there is a combination of eating that requires salt and a combination of eating that does not need salt.
I did not notice any improvement in digestion when I add salt. I did notice I can eat more raw meat when I add a little salt.
See the other answers of other raw paleo practitioners at http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/do-you-use-salt/