Lee Swanson: Hi, I’m Lee Swanson, president of Swanson Health Products. I’m here today with Dr. Barbara Hendel, author of the best selling book, Water and Salt: the Essence of Life and the Healing Power of Nature. Barbara, in an earlier interview with you, we discussed the role that sugar plays in dragging down people’s health, and you had mentioned that insulin is a primary factor as to why people become fat. Why is that? Dr. Barbara Hendel: Because insulin stops burning fat. The fat cells are closed and the fat can’t burn. So, the weight will increase and increase and then you get diabetes and hypertension, and all these diseases come from bad food. Lee Swanson: Now the problem is a person who eats a high sugar diet. They eat a candy bar, or drink a bottle of soda pop, and their blood sugar goes up and their pancreas produces insulin, correct? Dr. Barbara Hendel: Yes. Lee Swanson: And the insulin produced by the pancreas actually helps to make us fat. Dr. Barbara Hendel: Yes. [Insulin] is an important hormone, but if it’s too high, it’s bad for your body. You can’t burn fat because [insulin] closes fat cells. The weight will increase and increase and you can’t burn your fat. So the main point is [people gain weight because they eat too much sugar, not because they eat too much fat.]… When you eat wheat, you have to eat whole grain wheat because the insulin [isn’t as high as] when you eat white wheat. Lee Swanson: White bread? Dr. Barbara Hendel: White bread… [And eating sugar makes insulin high]. If you eat fruits, they are sweet too… but the insulin wouldn’t increase like that. So you can eat sweets, but you have to eat the right things… as natural as possible. Lee Swanson: Right. Now, when people come into your practice in Munich, Germany, the first thing that you do is survey them as to what type of foods they’re eating, and you try to change their diet to a more natural way of eating –— whole foods and vegetables. But, you also focus on what type of salt they have in their diet, and you recommend a particular type of salt from the Himalayan Mountains. The salt that people get in their salt shaker, as we talked earlier, is simply not, not good. But what is it about your Himalayan salt that is healthy? Dr. Barbara Hendel: Yes… The Himalayan salt is a natural salt, and it’s unique [because it’s] so pure that you don’t have to refine it. When you have salt, perhaps from Germany, the salt mines have about 35% salt and the other substances, are clay and stones and everything else— Lee Swanson: Impurities… Dr. Barbara Hendel: So you have to put in water and dissolve this salt, and then you have [to] evaporate the water… and then the salt will remain. But in the Himalayan region, this salt is so pure, you have about 98% salt, and the other substances are… Lee Swanson: Natural minerals… Dr. Barbara Hendel: Natural minerals, yes. You can eat it like that because there is a law that salt has, has to have 97% salt—sodium chloride. And this salt is so pure, that you can eat it like the earth presents you, and it has such a high geometrical structure that it has good vibrations too. Because that salt has all in your body needs. [It’s] all minerals, [the same as the concentration in your body]. Our body is a 1% solution— Lee Swanson: A 1% salt solution. Dr. Barbara Hendel: Yes all fluids in our body are a 1% solution. Our tears, our blood, and even the fluid in the womb, where babies [grow] is a 1% solution. But [it’s] not only sodium chloride but all other elements [and] substances are in it. [There are] about 85 different substances in a combination in our body. [The solution] is really like a part of our body. Therefore it’s healthy for our body. Lee Swanson: Yes, as I mentioned earlier, we’ve always believed—at least I have—that salt is not good for us, but it stands to reason that if life came from the oceans originally that we need salt in our lives and in our diet t