Why Eat Healthy at the Table, Food is Fuel

February Theme: Eat at the Table

The "electrolytes"

Sodium, chloride, potassium, calcium and magnesium are known as the "electrolytes" as they are minerals which dissolve in water and form electrically charged particles called "ions". Those ions are essential for transmitting electrical impulses along nerves and for muscle contraction. So how do they work? They create electrical impulses that let cells in our body to send messages back and forth to one another (cell communication) and through this, you can perform all the "bioelectrical" functions such as thinking, moving and seeing and so a healthy body needs electrolytes.

Salt (sodium chloride or NaCl) is one of the electrolytes that we all know very well. When salt is dissolved in water, the ions become separated. They are involved in fluid (water) balance in our body, if the balance is off, your nerves and muscles can suffer.

As well as the salt content of your bodily cells and surrounding fluids, calcium, magnesium and potassium are also important in fluid balance of your muscles. Therefore, if your balance of electrolytes is off, you can get muscle cramps because the impulses are not firing correctly and the muscles contract in spasms. This means that fluid balance is important for us so we need correct amounts of electrolytes in our body.

When the levels of sodium are too high, the body retains more water, which also raises the blood pressure (hypertension) as the increased water makes the heart work harder. Think of your home central heating system - if you topped up the water in the system too high, the pressure gauge will go up.

Under normal circumstances, there is more potassium than sodium and chloride in the fluid inside your cells. That means there will be the opposite concentration in your blood system which surrounds the cells (more sodium and chlorine and less potassium outside your cells). The concentration of those electrolytes affects the water content of your cells (diluting or concentrating it). If you become dehydrated (less water in the body cells), there will be more electrolytes in your blood system (outside the cells), which is picked up by your thirst receptors hence why you become thirsty. A hormone (known as the antidiuretic hormone a.k.a. ADH) is also released to prevent further dehydration, it works by reducing the amount of urine being produced by the kidneys, thereby preventing further water loss from our body.

• Did you know? Salt intake makes you thirsty as it makes your blood more concentrated and so we drink more water/fluid so that excess salt can be processed by your kidneys and passed out through your urine.
• Did you know? Chlorine is actually a green gas which is poisonous, but when it is combined with sodium (a soft metal), the combined chemical is known as sodium chloride (a.k.a. salt)?
• Did you know? Food labels which give you the sodium content of the food are not telling the full story? Sodium appears in food labels instead of salt itself so when reading sodium on a food label you have to multiply it by 2.5 times to get the actual salt content. [1]

Minerals [2]

How often do we hear of the need of the body for specific minerals? The body needs calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorous, sodium, iodine, etc. Minerals have three primary functions within the body:

• They provide structure in forming bones and teeth.
• They help maintain normal heart rhythm, muscle function, neural conductivity, and acid-base balance.
• They help regulate cellular metabolism by becoming part of enzymes and hormones that modulate cellular activity.

Note: I provided this information to give you the opportunity to view information from various sources to help make it more meaningful. This is by no means all inclusive.

Why do I Care?

You care because much of how we feel has to do with what we do and don’t ingest. If your body never has enough water it can’t get rid of the toxins it needs to excrete from your system.

You care because missing out on essential nutrients can cause poor mental function, exhaustion, confusion, poor physical capacity and so on.

You care because God says your body is His temple and we are to care for it.

I challenge you to try to make a change, big or small. Your body will thank you. Change is not easy and to make it a habit you need to make a change for over 21 days before it becomes a habit. Try it out and see if increasing a more balanced diet has you feeling better. –Nurse Doyle, signing out.

[1] Taken from Eat Balanced website.
[2] Taken from Hallelujah Health Website