Among the three SOS Extracts (Salt, Oil, Sugar), elimination of salt is the most challenging. Why?

I diligently followed WFPB-SOS for 10-12 weeks in late 2017. My taste buds adjusted just fine! I didn't add many spices to my food — lemon was the main 'taste enhancer'. And I loved the simple food I prepared at home :) Actually, there is a lot of salt in fruits like oranges. By eating very simple foods, a simple orange will start tasting salty! I resumed my WFPB-SOS regimen in Feb 2019; it's been 8 weeks so far and I have no cravings for added salts.

What's challenging about WFPB-SOS is that I have to prepare all of my meals at home. Currently, I'm in the process of streamlining my cooking pipeline to make it quick and efficient.

From Jan 2019 onwards, I have been consistently WFPB-SOS.

By definition, WFPB (Whole Food Plant-Based) is Oil-free and Sugar-free. But it's not salt-free. WFPB doctors do allow for a little bit of salt in our foods. Which salt? As far as I know, they don't insist on using rock salt — regular table salt is acceptable. This article by Dr McDougall explains that super-low salt meals are served at the McDougall Center. The article doesn't say it but the meals are probably zero salt - I'm not sure. But they keep a salt shaker on the table to let people add a bit of salt for taste. How much is allowed? About half a teaspoon in a day. The article also explains that salt used to be a rare commodity in many parts of the world and that many people lived without table salt for ages.

Among the articles and videos I've browsed through, I've come across WFPB docs placing an upper limit on salt intake — approximately 1500 mg total. But I don't remember any guideline saying that we must consume at least X mg of table salt every day. As the McDougall article explains, if we follow WFPB-NO, then we get a few hundred mg of salt (about 300 mg?) daily from fruits, vegetables and starches. My understanding is a that so much salt is sufficient — we won't run into any nutritional deficiencies due to zero added salt intake.

A naturopath whom I admire is Dr Satyanarayanan Manthena Raju from Andhra Pradesh, India. He advocates MOSS-free food where MOSS = Masala, Oil, Salt, Sugar. One of my friends and his wife attended classes by him. They learnt that it's best to approach MOSS-free food by adopting a series of habits in sequence: First eliminate animal products, milk and sugar. Then acquire a series of other habits like "drink lots of wtaer", "early fruit dinner at 4pm-5pm", "sprout breakfast", "fast once a week". Only then comes the habit of "remove oil and salt". But these are general guidelines. If somebody can eliminate oil and salt before adopting the other habits, that's great too! And if somebody can adopt all of these habits at once, that would be super awesome! But suddently adopping them together may be overwhelming, so a sequence has been chalked out.

Masala is removed by only a very small percentage of people — by those whose food habits are already very simple and who are able to notice that foods (especially Masalas) affect meditation.

If I remember correctly, in Dr Manthena Raju's system, they first encourage us to develop "drink lots of water" habit first, and only then adopt "eliminate salt" habit. The "drink lots of water" has a lot of details (when and how to drink).

Iodine: When we eliminate meat and dairy, we have to be careful with B12 intake — all WFPB doctors say that supplements are necessary. Similarly, when we eliminate salt, we should be careful with iodine intake. It was because people were developing iodine deficiency that governments starting mandating that iodine be added to salt (about a hundred years ago). How do I ensure sufficient iodine on SOS-Free WFPB? See

The Challenge: WFPB-SOS (no salt, no oil, no sugar) is actually a great system. But it's difficult to follow. Oils have substitutes: cashew paste or crushed nuts. Sugars have substitutes: dates, date syrup, date sugar. But salt has no substitute ← that's why it is challenging to leave out salt.

Adaptation: If we adhere to WFPB-SOS for a few weeks (I'd say, about 4 to 6 weeks), our taste buds develop to start enjoying salt-free foods! Real food is super tasty[ even individual constituents taste so good! There is no real need to add salt and spices … but this can be appreciated only after simplifying our foods habits greatly.

Five White "Poisons": Googling for five white poisons results in several articles listing {salt, sugar, white rice, milk, white flour} as five things we should strive to eliminate.