When I sat with my teacher and mentor, Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra for 20 years, we saw so many patients together, most of whom had overheating in the liver due to the intense amount of toxins circulating through it their whole life, usually from the use of bad quality foods combined with the overuse of pharmaceuticals.
So we had to always be mindful to tailor their individual protocols around the idea that the liver was too hot and give the herbs very carefully so as to not heat up the liver anymore.
But when it came to salt, my teacher was always telling me that the type of Himalayan salt we usually get here in the Western world was the pink Himalayan salt. He said that any salt in general already creates some heat in the body, but the pink Himalayan salt heated the liver more than its white counterpart, which is also found in the Himalayas.
So as usual, he set to work trying to locate a source for this white Himalayan salt and he eventually was able to obtain it for our patients. When he finally did import it to America and he received it he immediately sent it to a lab to have it analyzed. He couldn’t wait to see which minerals it contained and why the ancient rishis of India proclaimed this to be the best salt.
I remember the day he finally got the reports back from the lab. His face was beaming as he pulled the pages out of the fax machine which were sent directly to my office upon completion of their studies. In a minute I’ll show you what the reports stated, but first, let’s learn a little more about this highly prized salt.
Here’s a little history on the Soma Salt: Thousands of years ago the Vedic Rishis, which were the enlightened sages or seers of ancient India, identified and confirmed the existence of six tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent.
Lavana, or the salty taste, is an important one, very commonly used, but the least understood. It contains a unique combination of both soma and agni. Soma is the cooling nurturing lunar energy which provides our bodies with stability, aids in lubrication and supports optimum absorption of what we eat and drink.
And Agni, which carries the hot vibrational energy from the sun, aids in the transformation process which includes digestion of both food and our emotions.
Marut is associated with the space and air elements and supports all movement in nature.
These are the 3 elements which are contained in prana, the life force which supports the entire universe, nature, as well as our physiologies.
Ayurveda places great emphasis on balancing the 6 tastes in our diets for optimum health. The salty tastes encompasses all foods that have a healthy salty taste. The ancient rishis observed the qualities of the salty taste and described how it improves the flavor of foods, aids digestion and circulation, pacifies Vata, heals and rejuvenates, enhances absorption, lubricates the stomach lining and clears and detoxifies the physical channels in the body. But nowadays we get our salty taste mainly from industrialized salt which is basically sodium chloride, which no longer delivers these good qualities.
They also recognized that in excess or with improper use the salty taste could cause imbalances. They described how excess salt aggravates pitta dosha, increases thirst, creates excess heat within the system, aggravates chronic skin diseases, and causes gum inflammation.
Soma salt is a cooling rock salt, as the name “soma” implies. It is extracted from the Himalayas in the historic land of Sindh. It undergoes a proprietary purification process which was handed down by my teacher’s family lineage of Shaka Vansya Ayurveda. This purification process removes the agni metals and minerals that contain heating properties, resulting in an end product which is balanced, cooling and nurturing. Organic materials are used during the cleaning process and no anti-caking agents or free-flowing agents are added.
Compared to many other salts which are heating in nature, Soma salt is cooing as it carries lunar soma intelligence which provides a more nurturing effect on the body. It provides a subtle salty taste which draws out the flavor in foods without dominating them.
The Charak Samhita, the definitive text of Ayurveda, lists 8 edible salts coming from the Himalayan mountains. It names the best among them as Soma Lavan, or Soma Salt.
Soma salt is described in Chapter 27, verse 300 as: rochanam (tasty), deepanam (increasing the digestive fire), crishyam (supporting shukra dhatu, or the reproductive fluids), chakchushya (supporting the longevity of the eyes by cooling the liver), avidahi cha (not creating a digestive imbalance due to an excessive heating quality and therefore not causing retention of toxins as other salts do), tridoshagnam (pacifying all 3 dosas) and having a somewhat sweet taste. And finally it was described as lavanottamam (the best of all salts).
So here is the mineral analysis of the Soma Salt Vaidya Mishra received from the lab:
It contains the following minerals: sodium, iron, magnesium, calcium and potassium. Soma salt contains very little sodium chloride, whereas most table salt is over 95% sodium chloride. Sodium chloride is what gives the salt its heating quality.
The analysis revealed that the Soma salt has less sodium and more potassium than other salts, which is highly desirable. It also contained magnesium and calcium. The magnesium, calcium and potassium are give the Soma salt its cooling somagenic qualities.
We carry this salt in our office to offer our patients. It’s important to know that in this day and age, with not only the warming of the earth, but on a smaller scale the overheating in our bodies which comes from overheating of the liver, that the salt we consume can actually aid in cooling us down, as opposed to other salts which will heat us up even more. Keep in mind that the overheating of the body paves the way for autoimmune diseases and cancer as this overheating is the source of inflammation which drives these dangerous disease processes.
I’m grateful to my teacher Vaidya Mishra, for sourcing this salt from the Himalayan mountains so we can protect our patients from the harmful effects of salts which not only make us thirsty, but which also increase the absorption of toxins into our cells, and over a lifetime of use may create much of the high blood pressure people are experiencing nowadays.
I hope this information was of value to you.
Thank you,