Your salt should contain correct percentages of sodium, potassium, magnesium, boron, iodine, manganese, zinc and selenium with some sea salt to get traces of other minerals. Note that you cannot just use sea salt alone as this always 99% sodium chloride so the proportions are not great.
The atomic mass of sodium is 23 g/mol and NaCl sodium chloride is 59 g/mol
The atomic mass of potassium is 39 g/mol and KCl potassium chloride is 75 g/mol
The atomic mass of magnesium is 24 g/mol and MgSO4 7(H20) magnesium sulphate heptahydrate or epsom salt is 246 g/mol
The atomic mass of boron is 11 g/mol and Na2B4O7 10(H2O) borax is 381 g/mol and borax contains 4 boron atoms.
The atomic mass of iodine is 127 g/mol and Modern Lugols 15% solution contains iodine 2.5 mg/drop (1660% of RDA)
The atomic mass of manganese is 55 g/mol and Chelated Manganese tablets are available with 50 mg per tablet (2174% of RDA)
The atomic mass of zinc is 55 g/mol and zinc citrate tablets are available with 50 mg per tablet (500% of RDA)
The atomic mass of selenium is 79 g/mol and selenium tablets are available with at 100 mcg per tablet (181% of RDA)
I weighed the amount of salt I would sprinkle for 1 meal and it was
1.5 grams. So for 2 salted meals per day that would be 3 grams per
day. You will see later that my judgement was wrong and that I need
to use 6 times as much as I thought for optimum health!. The
worldwide research over 5 decades has concluded the estimated
healthy range for human sodium intake is 120–220 mmol/d
(2,800–5,000mg/d)
Oxford
Academic.
The bulk of the salt will be Saxa SO-LOW which is 51% potassium chloride and 48% sodium chloride. I will use the whole 350 grams in the container.
I will add cornish sea salt which is naturally harvested at the shoreline. Despite saying it is mineral rich, Cornish Sea Salt 225 grams is 98.86% sodium chloride so extra minerals are negligible, certainly useless for potassium, magnesium and iodine but lets add all 225 grams anyway. So our mix so far with 48% of 350 grams and 99% of 225 grams has (0.48*350+0.99*225) = 391 grams sodium chloride with a combined weight (including potassium chloride) of (350+225) = 575 grams. Adding the other elements (magnesium+boron) gives a batch of (575+155+6) = 736 g
The NHS recommend no more that 6 grams of sodium chloride per day (corresponding a sodium weight of 6*(23/59) = 2.34 grams sodium) HOWEVER they are mistaken as the lowest risk of health problems occurs with 4 grams sodium per day and the NHS may be confused by people with low potassium and magnesium intake which will not be the case with our home made salt which includes potassium and magnesium. The US guidelines for sodium are similarly low (less than 2.3 grams sodium) So even with my 3 gram sprinkling per day is insufficient and I will need to up this to (4*(59/23)*(736/391)) = 19 grams!!! or six times what I judged as normal (of course you will be getting much sodium from other food like cheese so you will not need all 19 grams of home made salt, maybe only the 3 grams! ).
Given (575/15) = 38 (also 736/19=38) that equates to a minimum number of days supply of 38 days. Given our expected daily serving is 19 grams, this gives a sodium chloride per day of (391/38) = 10.3 grams sodium chloride. Nice!. That equates to a sodium weight of 10.3*(23/59) = 4 grams sodium , optimal as expected.
The RDA for potassium is 4.7 grams. Our batch has (0.51*350) = 179 g of potassium chloride. Our mix so far (38 days) will equate to a potassium chloride weight of (179/38) = 4.7 grams of potassium chloride. That equates to a potassium weight of 4.7*(39/75) = 2.4 grams potassium, about half our daily requirement. You will also find much potassium in your leafy greens. If you have chronic kidney disease have a doctor test your potassium levels in your blood as you may need to increase or decrease your potassium consumption.
The RDA for magnesium is 400 mg. That can be obtained from epsom salt weighing 0.4*(246/24) = 4.1 grams. So for our 38 day batch we will add 4.1*38 = 155 grams of epsom salt. It sounds a lot but there is a lot of water in the epsom salt crystals. You will also find magnesium in your leafy greens!. Thomas E. Levy who wrote the book "Death by calcium" actually loves magnesium! (and says to never supplement calcium).
Boron has no RDA, but less than 20 mg is safe. We can buy boron as borax. To get 20 mg per day we need to add 0.02*(381/11/4) = 0.17 grams of borax. For our batch we add 0.17*38 = 6.43 grams of borax. It is observed that people with high boron levels have much less chance of cancer. But as boron is free nobody can make money from this fact so you are not going to hear about it.
The RDA for iodine is 150 micrograms (mcg) and the regulators do not
like supplements to contain more than 800 mcg. The NHS says Taking
0.5mg or less a day of iodine supplements is unlikely to cause any
harm.
There are some doctors who promote many milligram doses due
to competition in body from fluoride and bromide. Let us go for 0.5
mg per day so (0.5*38) = 19mg for our batch. That is 19/2.5 = 8
drops of Lugols iodine 15%.
The RDA for manganese is 2.3 mg. For the batch we need 2.3*38 = 87.4 mg. That can be found crushing 2 x 50mg tablets.
The RDA for zinc is 11 mg, though 50 mg tablets are available for use when your immune system is actively fighting a current infection. Let us choose 11mg per day. So batch needs 11*38 = 418 mg of zinc which can be found by crushing 418/50 = 8 x 50 mg tablets.
The RDA for selenium is 55 micrograms (mcg). So batch needs 55*38 = 2090 mcg of selenium which can be found by crushing 2090/100 = 21 x 100 mcg tablets.
So our batch is now complete. Note you need to separately supplement vitamins B-complex, D3+K2, A, chromium, copper, omega 3, plant compounds etc
In summary:-
| Compound | Amount | Units |
|---|---|---|
| SO-LOW salt | 350 | grams |
| Cornish Sea Salt | 225 | grams |
| Epsom salt | 155 | grams |
| Borax | 6.3 | grams |
| Lugols Iodine 15% | 8 | drops |
| Chelated Manganese (50mg manganese) | 2 | tablets |
| Zinc Citrate (50mg zinc) | 8 | tablets |
| Selenium (100mcg Selenium) | 21 | tablets |
If you prefer to get most of your sodium another way e.g. junk food, then you may not be able to use our salt mix as it is mostly sodium. In this case you could eliminate the Cornish Sea Salt (99% sodium chloride) in which case you more than halve the sodium content while keeping the potassium and some sodium. It is still salty. It is less bulky now as total batch mass is now only (165+350)= 515g so the daily serving size is now 515/38 = 13 g
If you just want some of the other minerals without sodium or potassium then you could eliminate both the Celtic Sea Salt and the SO-LO salt but then it is no longer salty and can no longer be used like salt as it will be now enormously less bulky so the total batch mass is now only 165 grams (mostly epsom salt) so a daily serving is only 165/38 = 4.34 grams, less than a teaspoon.
If you only wanted magnesium then there are other forms you can buy online such as magnesium citrate but these are bulky pills and only give you 200mg magnesium. An interesting alternative is to drink milk of magnesia (magnesium hydroxide) in the form made by Phillips for upset stomach and indigestion. This may help some people who have stomach issues and wish to calm stomach at night before bed at least an hour after eating so that your stomach acid has finished its digestion and moved the stomach contents to the small intestine.
The atomic mass of magnesium is 24 g/mol and Mg2(OH)) magnesium hydroxide is 58 g/mol
The RDA for magnesium is 400 mg. That can be obtained from magnesium hydroxide weighing 0.4*(58/24) = 0.97 grams
Each 5ml of milk of magnesia contains 0.415g of magnesium hydroxide so a suitable daily dose of of milk of magnesia would be 5*(0.97/0.415) = 11.6 ml. The bottle of milk of magnesia comes with a measuring cap which has lines at 5ml and 10ml etc will allow you to dose a bit more that 10 ml which is close enough. At this daily rate a 200 ml bottle of milk of magnesia will last about 18 days.