The other day I was preparing dinner and thought I would try something
new. It didn’t really go with the dinner I was cooking, but I had it around for
awhile and it was time to use it up. It is called Guancile. Guancile is an
unsmoked Italian bacon. I started frying it up and tasted it. Very salty, and
very good! My farmer said that it should
be crushed up and put on salad or used as a topping for other things. I thought…it
is really yummy, salty bacon, and I no longer fear good fat such as this, so I
will just munch on it.
Four slices later, I was salted out. Ryan and Colson liked it, but they
did not eat as much, thank goodness! The next morning, I ate two more slices
and my heart started fluttering. I was annoyed by the heart flutters, because
they are a sign of severe stress for me and I wasn’t stressed. I drank a kefir
smoothie (see recipes section) and the flutters stopped.
That night, I made a rice dish with a cheese sauce topping. The cheese
was a bit salty, but not too bad. After a few bites of that, the heart flutters
returned almost immediately – for four hours! Finally it hit me…salt is causing
these heart flutters. I felt totally fine except for the flutters. Now I know
why too much salt is bad for the heart. Sometimes it really stinks to learn
from experience.
What to do, what to do? It was 11:30 at night and I wasn’t about to call
my Dr. of Oriental Medicine. I went to the Internet. I learned that too much
salt can cause irregular heart rhythm. No kidding. In order to bring the heart
back to regular rhythm, I needed to eat Potassium rich foods, so I ate a
banana, cantaloupe, and raw milk. Within five minutes the flutters were gone.
Whew!
Another learning point is that for people who regularly use heavy salt,
it can take a year for the body to shed all of that salt. I am not a heavy salt
user, but did have the perfect salt storm. The salt from the first night of
Guancile compounded with the salt from the Guancile the next morning and the
cheese that night. I haven’t had much salt since my late night snacks a few
days ago, and my heart flutters have not returned.
On a related note, a friend of mine has terribly weakened adrenal glands.
She told me that her doctor recommends that she eat lots of salt because she is
salt deprived. Her body has too much potassium, which needs to be balanced by
salt. I used to have very weak adrenals. I knew that I had strengthened them
significantly, but perhaps they are stronger than I thought since I needed
potassium to balance my salt intake. I am looking forward to some feedback from
my Dr. of Oriental Medicine.
That is enough unintended self-inflicted science experiments for awhile!
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