Salt, In Three Parts

The book Salt is fascinating, if you are into the history of how common items influence history and customs and such. The author traces the impact salt has had on societies since recorded history. He makes the point that how we feel about oil is how previous societies felt about salt; think we'll ever get to a point where oil is a non-issue? (Not because of supplies, but because of reduced necessity?) I also loved the part where he talked about the Sichuan rural peasant making declarations about Chinese inventions apropos of nothing. Totally. The Chinese do love their declarations!

Salt, by Mark Kurlansky

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This sparked a realization: iodine deficiency. Pretty sure I had it in China. In about my fifth month there, my hair started falling out in too-large-for-comfort chunks. I was horrified, as I am pretty vain. I called our doctor about it and she told me I needed to diversify my diet; I was a vegetarian and my normal protein substitutes (mainly dairy and nuts) were either too expensive or too scarce. I was still suspicious of the non-refrigerated eggs at this point, and hadn't discovered how to eat their formats of soy. The Chinese don't use table salt, and salt used for cooking isn't iodized. I started eating fish and meat and seaweed in my soup and my hair stopped falling out. I thought it was a protein issue but knowing what I know now, it was probably an iodine issue. I wonder if I've recovered yet iodine-wise, in full? Might take some supplements for a few weeks and see if I feel any different. The alternative is to eat more of this: 

Mmmmm...dinner!

These are the things you have to deal with if you join the Peace Corps or go live in a country where the dietary standards are very different. It's entirely possible to be healthy eating a Chinese diet, but you gotta learn how to do that. And not be afraid of unrefrigerated eggs, meat and seaweed! 

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I also remembered that salt bath is a treatment for eczema. I get eczema in small patches all over my body at various times, and it's gross and uncomfortable. I use creams and such, but it never really gets rid of it. I looked online for unscented bath salts, and you can buy big jugs of them for about $30 from Amazon. HOWEVER, a guy also said in the comments that you can buy a big bag of salt suitable for bathing in from a hardware store for much, much cheaper. Sure enough, today I went to Home Depot and a 40lb bag of salts is $3.50. It takes about 20lbs to get the bath water to the same level of saltiness as the sea. That's a lot of salt! I'm also going to the health food store tonight to get magnesium chloride to add to the bath water, as that is the extra ingredient in extra-recommended Dead Sea salt. (In sum: sodium chloride + magnesium chloride = nice skin. I hope.) 

I will report back if it makes any improvement over time. I figure for $3.50, can't hurt to try. 

Next step is for me to turn into a pillar of salt.