Real Salt contains trace amounts of naturally occurring aluminosilicate, which is very different from the aluminum used to create antiperspirants, foil, and other human-made products.
We’re grateful you care so much about the ingredients you put into your body, and we’re right there with you. We’re extraordinarily careful about aluminum exposure in our lives too.
We also know that aluminum is the third most abundant element on Earth and the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. As a result, trace amounts of aluminum occur naturally in our environment—the soil, water, air, veggies, fruits, grains, meat, and yes, even your salt.
Since it’s ultimately unavoidable, we consider the form of the aluminum as well as the amount when making food choices. That said, everyone’s journey is unique and you’ll need to decide what approach to take for you and your family.
Not All Aluminum is Created Equal
If you look at the Real Salt Elemental Analysis, you’ll see that Real Salt contains trace amounts of the element aluminum. What matters most here, however, is the form of this aluminum.
In nature, aluminum is an element that forms ionic compounds with other elements, like oxygen, silicon, and fluorine. Aluminum does not occur as a free metal in nature, which means you won’t find pure metallic aluminum in natural substances like soil, salt, and clay.
It actually wasn’t until 1825 that a chemist was able to extract and refine pure metallic aluminum out of clays and sands. Today, this human-made aluminum metal is used to create beverage cans, pots and pans, airplanes, siding and roofing, and aluminum foil.
What does all this mean? The aluminum in Real Salt is very different from the aluminum found in aluminum foil, antiperspirants, and other human-made products. The aluminum in Real Salt is naturally occurring aluminosilicate (a combination of aluminum, silica, and oxygen).
The form of an element can often make a huge difference in how it impacts the body. One great example of this is sodium. There’s 530 mg of sodium per serving in Real Salt, but that is not pure elemental metallic sodium (yes, sodium is a metal too!).
Pure elemental metallic sodium is an extremely reactive alkaline metal that blows up with a single drop of water. More importantly, this type of sodium does not occur in nature.
The chlorine/chloride in Real Salt isn’t the pure elemental form of chlorine either. Elemental chlorine is a very deadly acidic gas. The form of chlorine you find in nature has an extra electron (turning it into “chloride”) and is bound to another element that is missing an electron. When one chloride ion is attached to one sodium ion, you get sodium chloride (table salt), which is nothing like elemental sodium or elemental chlorine.
Just like sodium and chlorine, the chemical reactions created by pure aluminum (and the way it interacts with the human body) are completely different from naturally occurring aluminosilicates. While pure elemental aluminum can be harmful to humans (especially in high doses), naturally occurring aluminosilicates are inert and generally considered safe.
How Much Aluminum Is Too Much?
While the form of aluminum makes a huge difference in its safety, the amount of aluminum you’re coming into contact with matters too.
The US Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry notes that “the average adult in the United States eats about 7–9 mg of aluminum per day in their food.” The World Health Organization sets the provisional tolerable weekly intake level for aluminum at 2 mg per kg of body weight.
If you’re an adult who weighs 70 kg (about 154 pounds), the tolerable weekly intake level would be 140 mg of aluminum. The amount of aluminum in Real Salt is approximately 0.05% or 0.7 mg per ¼ tsp serving (1,400 mg). That means the average adult would need to consume more than 7 teaspoons of Real Salt, which would be more than 14,850 mg of sodium, per day to hit the tolerable limit. This is way, way more than most people consume in their daily lives, which means Real Salt is not a significant source of naturally occurring aluminosilicates for most people.
Summary
In summary, aluminum is naturally found in trace amounts everywhere, including our soil, water, salt, vegetables, fruits, and other foods. Fortunately, our bodies have the ability to deal with the trace amounts of these elements found in our earthly environment. That doesn’t mean we should seek them out, but we also feel that a trace amount appearing naturally in foods is not the big issue when it comes to aluminum.
We hope this helps you feel confident about the safety of Real Salt. We take our customers’ well-being very seriously, and we would never sell a product that wasn’t properly tested and proven to be safe. That said, if for any reason you are not comfortable with the small levels of any of the elements found in Real Salt, there are a lot of other great salts out there that may be a better fit for your needs.
We’re standing by if you have any other questions or concerns on this issue. Just reach out and let us know! And here's a copy of our latest mineral analysis in case you want to take a closer peek at it.