# What type of salt is best for a kidney stoner? Source: https://kidneystonediet.com/ep/what-type-of-salt-is-best-for-a-kidney-stoner/ Published: 2021-01-05 --- [![Kidney Stone Diet Podcast](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Podcast-1-1024x1024.jpg)](https://kidneystonediet.com/podcast/) [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2XfaCxQYw8)[Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-type-of-salt-is-best-for-a-kidney-stoner/id1528474326?i=1000504414201&uo=4)[Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Y4fdzMs6azp2rONz3leVq)[Amazon Music](https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0868148d-adfd-411d-b3f2-71a0ad1461ec) January 5, 2021 --- ![Jeff Sarris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Jeff-Sarris-150x150.jpg) Jeff Sarris Host ![Jill Harris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Jill-Harris-150x150.jpg) Jill Harris Host In this episode of the Kidney Stone Diet Podcast Jill Harris answers a listener question.\ \ • [Kidney Stone Diet](https://kidneystonediet.com/)\ • [Kidney Stone Prevention Program](https://kidneystonediet.com/kidney-stone-prevention)\ • [Oxalate Food List](https://kidneystonediet.com/oxalate-list/)\ • [Free KSD Resources](https://kidneystonediet.com/resources/)\ \ Find the full transcript at [BYLT.co/show/kidney-stone-diet](https://bylt.co/show/kidney-stone-diet) ## Chapters - 00:00:00 Types of Salt and Sodium Limits - 00:04:06 Reading Nutrition Labels and Tracking Daily Intake - 00:07:38 Making Lifestyle Changes and Managing Portions - 00:10:30 Genetics and Dietary Intervention for Prevention ## Transcript ### Types of Salt and Sodium Limits 00:00:00 Jill Harris SPYR 00:00:13 Jeff Sarris Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet podcast, the show about reducing your risk for kidney stones and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris. And I'm here, as always, with our friendly neighborhood nurse and kidney stone prevention expert, Jill Harris. Hi, Jeff. Good to see you. So, we're going to dive right into another question right out of the Facebook group. And this one is regarding salt. So, there are a bunch of different types of salt. Is there a difference when it comes to table salt, sea salt, or Himalayan salt? 00:00:46 Jill Harris Well, it's a great question, and I get this one fairly, look, it's people are asking me because they want more salt. So, they're like, sister, okay, I'll get rid of table salt, but how about that fancy pink salt? Can I have more of that? Look, as far as, for all intents and purposes here, salt is salt. Now, there's chemical, and there's a little chemistry that will make each one a little different, but as far as I'm concerned, I don't care if you use pink salt, black salt, rainbow bright salt, I don't care what you're doing. It's salt, people. And so, what we're trying to do is lower it, and why we're trying to lower sodium in your diet, is if I, if, if, in the Kidney Stone Diet, we give you, it's 1,500, and I always, I don't want people really to go lower, so I always say 1,500 to 2000-2,300, okay? But the goal is always to go Around 1,500. You're not going to be perfect. And the reason we want you to do that is because when we eat more salt, and most people know this, you eat more salt, you bloat up. Your jeans don't fit. But more importantly, your urine volume is lessened, meaning you don't pee a lot, okay? Because your body's bloating up, so it's very important. Some people will say, "I don't know what the hell's going on. I drink all day. Ain't nothing coming out of me." Well, because you have a high salt diet. So, you're a bloated, you're bloated, and your urine volume is way less than what it should be simply because you're eating too much salt. If you didn't increase your fluids, but you decreased your salt, you're going to be peeing like a horse. Beautiful, Beautiful. So, not only, so not only is lowering salt good for your waistline, good for your blood pressure, good for your kidneys, it's good for every organ, people. It's also good for your urinary tract because you will pee more, okay? And so, when we pee more, we lessen all those crystals in our kidney. They get to be flushed out. And again, I'll say it, we're not so, those, those crystals and minerals and salts in your kidney, your calcium, your oxalate, your calcium, your phosphate, all that stuff, your uric acid crystals, they ain't wearing masks. They ain't social distancing. They want to find each other in your kidney and form those stones, so the more you pee, boom, the more they come out, come out, come out, come out. So, Whenever Jeff asks me a question, I know people are like, "Oh god, she's still talking." But this stuff is complicated. This is why your surgeons, they don't have time to go over all this with you. They have 15 minutes, they're surgeons, okay? So, doing one thing, doing a better job at one thing is going to help everything. So, it's so very important, The fluids, the sodium, the sugar, the protein, the calcium, all of that, the oxalate, all of this works together to lessen your stone risk. And so, no matter what color salt you want to be asking me about, lower it, okay? The goal is to eat whole foods, getting your calcium, fruits and vegetables, there's an abundance of them. There's only a few that are high oxalate you need to worry about, Okay? Getting enough fluids, all of that put together. So, no matter what salt you're doing, lessen it, people, lessen it. ### Reading Nutrition Labels and Tracking Daily Intake 00:04:06 Jeff Sarris Yeah, and then how do you personally track? Do you track macros like sodium and things, and because I know like we talk about calcium, we talk about sodium, we talk about the various things, what's what do you use? 00:04:18 Jill Harris So, I've been doing this very, very long time. I use the good old-fashioned nutrition label. So, if you're eating things, first of all, if you're eating things that aren't in a package, you're going to pretty much know, mostly, mostly, that there's not much sugar or salt in it, okay? Once you start buying boxes and cans and packages and this and that, You got to turn it around, Buster Brown, and look at how much sodium. So, because I've been doing this so long, I'm like I, you can imagine, there's no high sodium whozies in my house. There's just not. I don't have high salt, I don't have high added sugar products in my house. So, I don't really have to worry about it. But when one is first starting, what I teach in the Kidney Stone Prevention Course is we start looking at labels, turn it around. Look at what it says. Don't be looking at no front of the label. Don't be looking at the front of the box, they lie. You got to turn it around, things are hidden and that's where all your information will be. There's a when you're first starting, calcium. How much calcium is in maybe the fruits and vegetables you're eating because you're you're not eating using dairy. Then, you want to get something like Cronometer or MyFitnessPal. So, people use all kinds of apps, I do not. So, I never suggest them, But I do know I have no problem with one using them, but I don't have experience with them. So, but most of my patients use Cronometer or MyFitnessPal to track until they start knowing it. They start knowing and getting their favorite foods, especially with like calcium. You'll know a couple pieces of Swiss cheese will get you there, a glass of, you know, fortified rice milk will get you there, Or flax milk, a glass of lactose-free milk or regular milk will get you this much calcium. So, after a while, and it takes a minute. Do not, do not listen to the diet industry and think that this takes a week. It doesn't. For most of you, it took years for you to get sick. It's going to take, it won't take years for you to get healthy, but it's going to take a month or two to get healthier. There is a learning curve, And this is why the Kidney Stone Prevention Course is so sex- successful, because people come in those groups, and they get to they have the course, which are videos of me teaching the course, they get to keep those, but then every day I give live office hours where people can come and ask questions and say what they're struggling with, and that's This is what makes my heart sing, being able to teach, and every person is different. So, when Susie's talking, Ellen is going to learn from what Susie's saying because everyone needs the same information. So, it's really awesome. Tim is going to say something and Ron's going to learn, "Oh, yeah. Thank you, Tim, for asking that. I forgot about that." You know, so everybody has the same questions, and it's a marvelous place. There's a learning curve here. Please know that, everybody, no matter what diet you're trying to follow. 00:07:13 Jeff Sarris Yeah, I mean, and it takes that personal effort as well, because you have the course, you have the resources, you do the live group calls every day like you mentioned, but, I mean, it does, it takes time. This is this is a shift in diet and, I mean, arguably lifestyle, as well, because, I mean, you're not grabbing necessarily the fast food all the time, or when you do, you're just knowing to think about the portion and keep things in check. ### Making Lifestyle Changes and Managing Portions 00:07:38 Jill Harris Absolutely. Absolutely. If people come to me, they're like, some private patients will come, "I'm not changing nothing. I'm just telling you right now, my doctor told me to call you. I'm not changing nothing. I drink gin all day and I eat Doritos. What are you going to do about it?" All right. All right, John, fine. Keep it. Don't change nothing. Just give me a fourth less of each, and guess what? You're going to be healthier because there's going to be less salt, it's going to be less alcohol. It'll be less than what you were doing. So, so much of this comes down to portion, too. We overeat, whether it's healthy food or not, we overeat. We don't need to eat as much as we are eating, okay? So, it doesn't have to be drastic, but the first thing I tell my patients, you've got to get your mind around the change. What I'm really interested in is we as human beings And the fact that it's super hard, me too, to change things. So, the first thing in a lifestyle is you've got to be 100% committed to opening yourself up to being to change a little, a little. I get patients, "I ain't ate a vegetable since 1972 and I ain't going to, I hate them." Well, you know what, Brad, you've been saying that since you're 12. So, guess what? You are now your story. So, you got to knock it off and start telling yourself, "You know what? I'm somebody who tries vegetables," and you'll be surprised. You work with me in that group for 1 month, 2 months, you'll be a veggie! You don't have to be, of course, but I'm just saying people like, "I couldn't believe it!" But it's because they're telling themselves the same thing over and over, and what you tell yourself becomes yourself. So, you know, it's all kinds of stuff. It's all kinds of stuff. How can I talk about this for 21 years, Jeff, if it wasn't all of this, right? It's so much fun. It's so exciting. It's wonderful. You learn about yourself. You say to yourself, "I want to change. I don't want a stent!" You guys, you have stents in your penises, they should not be there. Girls, come on! Nobody wants to be having unnatural things like that. These surgeries, They can damage your kidneys, you're in the ICU, you're septic, come on! I want people never to have to deal with that kind of stuff again. That's why I get up every day and my son and my son. That's why, because I don't want people to be sick, and most of my patients never have a stone again. Why? I'm not the Easter Bunny. It's because they work really hard on making these changes, and they don't. You don't have to make stones. Up to 80% of people never have a stone again. They won't have to We can get rid of 80% of recurrence. That's what science That's what data shows. Some people, they will always make stones because they have underlying medical conditions, but most people, do- they don't have to have stones anymore. All right, I know. I say too much. I don't care. I can't help it, Jeff. I can't help it! ### Genetics and Dietary Intervention for Prevention 00:10:30 Jeff Sarris Oh, no, it's perfect. That's why we're here and that's why people listen to the show. If anyone wants to know more about the genetics component as well, one of our first episodes, we dove into that and talked more about like what it means to be predisposed to produce kidney stones versus having a dietary intervention be really the way, but the dietary intervention works across the board to lessen and reduce the risk. 00:10:53 Jill Harris Yes, yes. Even if you have genetics not on your side, diet certainly has the it will play into it. You can't eat, again, Doritos and gin all day and still, even though you know, you have to still change stuff. You just have to for all your other medical conditions, right? 00:11:09 Jeff Sarris Oh, yeah. Yeah, we just want to be We want to live more vibrant lives. That's really what it's all about. So, for people who want to dive deeper, then they can head on over to kidney prevention course or even just get on the email newsletter where every week, every Saturday, Jill writes you an email with little motivation to keep you on track. There's also the Facebook group, all the various resources, But you can find everything at kidneystonediet.com. So, that'll be a wrap for this week, Jill. Thanks again, and we'll see you next week. 00:11:43 Jill Harris Thank you, Jeff.