Fawn Bales wrote:
> True - high blood pressure is more of a result of low potassium than
high sodium!  Potassium is found in fresh, natural foods - and is
refined out of processed foods.
....
> Also, high blood pressure is a result of insulin resistance - caused by
a lifetime of eating unatural highly processed, high carbohydrate,
low-fiber foods.

Apparently there is probably more to it than that.  My previously vegan
boyfriend (now he's paleo) did not spend "a lifetime" eating processed food.
He ate whole food almost exclusively--a very high fiber, low-processed-food
diet.  He's also normal weight and very fit--works out almost every day.  And
yet he has high blood pressure.  For a while he needed two medications to
control it.  Since shifting to a paleo diet and cutting out added salt (both
in cooking and at the table), his blood pressure is down enough that he can
maintain on one medication.

All this stuff people have been writing about how people need
electrolytes--including salt--and their heart will stop if they don't get it,
etc., etc. is really straw man stuff.  The question is not whether we need
minerals in our diet--we all know we do.  The question is whether salting our
food is a good idea.  I still maintain it is not.  I don't know about this
book and all its scary theories, but I do know that salt seems to have some
addictive characteristics.  The more you use it, the more you want it.  When
you stop using it, you don't miss it.  And--this is important--if you are
eating a paleo diet, which is by definition full of red meat--you are getting
plenty of salt!  Animal meat is salty.

If you're eating like our paleo ancestors did--whole foods, lots of red
meat--you will get all the electrolytes your body needs in the proper
proportion, and you won't have to worry about it at all.  This is very
different from selecting low-sodium processed foods.