Click to play videoBhavnagar: If you're a blood pressure patient, the first thing you're told to do is cut down on salt. But now a new vegetable-extracted salt is proving this fact wrong.
The Bhavnagar-based Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI) has developed and marketed edible salt extracted and processed from dried seaweed and a coastal shrub.
The coastal shrub, which grows on the Gujarat coast, is rich in sodium chloride while the seaweed, grown off the coast of Tamil Nadu, is rich in potassium chloride.
A mix of the two, sold as Saloni K, is low in sodium and high in potassium.
In the CSMCRI lab, extracts from a coastal shrub and a seaweed are processed to prepare what is the world's first edible salt derived entirely from plants.
While scientists at the institute have also developed and marketed regular salt, Saloni, derived from just the coastal shrub, it's Saloni K, that is especially good news for the health-conscious.
- Coastal shrub Salicornia Brachiota, a halophyte, grows off the coast of Gujarat
- Seaweed Kappaphycus Alvarezii, also known as sea asparagus, grows off the Tamil Nadu coast
- A mix of the two, sold as Saloni K, is low in sodium and high in potassium
"There are people who value things of vegetable origin, especially low sodium salt from a botanical origina that has a high percentage of potassium," said CSMCRI Director Dr P K Ghosh.
You can buy 200 grams of Saloni K for Rs 40. And doctors, who have recommended the salt to their patients, say that apart from having micronutrients, the presence of potassium in Saloni and Saloni K helps contain disorders like high blood pressure and reduces other organ-related ailments.
"It is an excellent supportive in cardiac, liver and kidney aliments. It is also excellent for patients with blood pressure ailments," said Cardiologist Dr Shailesh Trivedi.
The Salt Research Institute has already secured international patents for both variants of the salt and has also begun marketing them through a local agency in Bhavnagar.
The key now lies in proposed large-scale cultivation of the plants, to bring down the cost of the miracle salt.
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