Just a year old, The Pink Lounge, Dry Salt Therapy, has developed a following as it is the only dry salt therapy lounges in Kent County. Owned by local entrepreneur Jessica Ann Tyson, who also owns The Candid Yam, a restaurant featuring Southern comfort food, and JA PR, which helps with the annual Miss Metro Cruise competition, The Pink Lounge is at 3105 Broadmoor Ave., SE.
Name of business: The Pink Lounge, Dry Salt Therapy
What is your business? We use the proven scientific research of salt from nature to aid in wellness of the mind, body and soul.
How long has your business been operating? We will soon be coming upon our first year anniversary.
How did your business get started? My teenage daughter told me about how other cultures embraced the science of salt, specifically from the Himalayan mountains and the Dead Sea of Jordan. Upon further research and studies, I became so impressed with the many health benefits. I truly believe that creating this type of business was going to be a game changer …. to have a place where people could ‘unplug’ and feel respite in such a busy world.
Why did you decide to locate your business in the Wyoming/Kentwood area? Kentwood is a great vibrant community. I feel fortunate to live in a place where doing business feels easy and feels supported in so many ways.
What has been the greatest challenge for your business? COVID definitely has not been kind to many and many are afraid to get out. The Pink Lounge is a rare gem as one of the only salt spas in this immediate area of Kent County. Those who know of the science or have experienced us benefit from us being here – especially during COVID and beyond.
The Pink Lounge: Dry Salt Therapy is marking its first anniversary. (Supplied)
What is the most popular product/item at your business? People absolutely LOVE bringing their employees or family members to a special private VIP session we call a Salt N Sip! They have the salt spa all to themselves to eat on salt bricks, make their own bath/soaking salt to take home and experience total rest and relaxation, leaving the stress behind.
What is a Wyoming/Kentwood business you like to visit during your free time? We have three other businesses so free time is at a premium – LBVS! During our ‘free time’ we like to support other businesses. It’s the law of reciprocity!
Hopes for 2021: The Pink Lounge wants to be able to do what everyone else wants to do – be open for business! We hope that people will be in a place to feel comfortable resuming their ‘normal activities’ soon!
When you have a sore-throat, you gargle with salt and water. When you need to flavor your food, you use salt. When you want to preserve food, you use salt. And for one local entrepreneur, when she wanted to start a new business, she started with salt.
Jessica Ann Tyson, owner of the southern cuisine restaurant The Candied Yam and JA PR Group, just opened The Pink Lounge: Dry Salt Therapy at the end of June with her daughter being the influencer behind this decision.
“I have a teenage daughter and she was telling me what was hot, what was happening and what was hip,” Tyson said. “When she told me about this concept, I started researching it and all the health benefits and I just had to bring this to our community.”
Dry salt therapy or halotherapy has been around for hundreds of years in Eastern Europe. It is purported to offer a variety of health benefits including relief from respiratory ailments such as asthma, allergies, bronchitis, colds, cystic fibrosis, ear infections and sinusitis as well as skin conditions like acne, eczema, psoriasis, rashes, and rosacea, according to the Salt Therapy Association. A 2017 issue of the Pediatric Pulmonology found that children with mild asthma who attend one or two halotherapy sessions per week for seven weeks gained greater improves in their bronchial hyperreactivity that a control group did.
The salt beds are great for care-seekers, according owner Jessica Ann Tyson. (Supplied/Pink Lounge)
The Pink Loungers offers three different types of therapy rooms. According to Tyson, the detoxifying and relaxation rooms are ideal for people with joint pain such as arthritis while the rooms with beds made of Himalayan salt are great for self-care seekers.
“You lay down in Pink Himalayan salt, and you will fall deep asleep because your body will be at a total peace and relaxation state,” Tyson said.
The last type of therapy room is the lounge room that is designed for relaxing with more than $300,000 dollars worth of salt.
“If you have seasonal affective disorder, this is the place you wanna come because it is peaceful, relaxing and welcoming and it gets to your mind, body and soul,” Tyson said.
The Lounge Room is designed for relaxing. (Supplied/Pink Lounge)
Because salt reduces the amount of water present it prevents the growth of bacteria. In fact, salt also is antiviral and anti-fungal making it a safe business to open amid the COVID pandemic, Tyson said.
“Salt is anti-everything. There’s so much science behind the Pink Himalayan salt and the wellness that it brings for the respiratory system,” she said. “I am certain that this spot will be a popular one.”
The Pink Lounge is located at 3105 Broadmoor Ave. For more information about The Pink Lounge, visit the business’s website pink-lounge.com.
Given their notoriously high salt content, packaged snacks may be one of the biggest culprits in your struggles with bloating and gas. (Courtesy Spectrum Health Beat)
If you often feel bloated after a meal, don’t be too quick to blame high-fiber foods. The real culprit might surprise you.
Your gut may be rebelling because you’re eating too much salt, a new study suggests.
“Sodium reduction is an important dietary intervention to reduce bloating symptoms and could be used to enhance compliance with healthful high-fiber diets,” said study researcher Noel Mueller, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
He and his research colleagues looked at data from a large clinical trial conducted in the late 1990s known as Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension-Sodium, or DASH-Sodium for short.
Their conclusion: Consuming a lot of salt increases bloating, as does a healthy, high-fiber diet.
Although it’s not clear exactly how salt contributes, Mueller suspects fluid retention may be the key.
Eating more salt can promote water retention and make digestion less efficient, which can lead to gas and bloating, he said.
Studies in mice have shown that dietary salt can alter the makeup of gut bacteria. And that, in turn, can affect gas production in the colon, Mueller said.
“Our study suggests that selecting foods with lower sodium content, such as those that are not ultra-processed, may help relieve bloating in some people,” he said.
Bloating affects as many as a third of Americans, including more than 90% of those with irritable bowel syndrome. It’s a painful buildup of excess gas created as gut bacteria break down fiber during digestion.
For the current study, the researchers used findings from a 1998-1999 trial.
In that trial, the DASH diet—one low in fat and high in fiber, fruits, nuts and veggies—was compared with a low-fiber eating regimen. The trial’s goal was to learn how salt and other factors affected high blood pressure.
The new review found that about 41% on the high-fiber diet reported bloating and men had a bigger problem with it than women. And diets high in salt increased the odds of bloating by 27%.
“We found that in both diets, reducing sodium intake reduced bloating symptoms,” Mueller said.
The upshot is that reducing sodium can be an effective way to prevent gas—and may help people maintain a healthy, high-fiber eating regimen.
Many things can cause bloating—lactose intolerance, celiac disease, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, infection or other conditions, said Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Langone Health.
“If someone is experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating on an ongoing basis, they should see their health care practitioner to see if the cause can be pinned down,” said Heller, who wasn’t involved with the study. “This way they will know how to manage the issue.”
Occasional bloating is not uncommon, she added.
To help you avoid excess gas and bloating, Heller offered these tips:
Increase physical activity.
Limit highly processed foods, such as fast food, frozen meals, junk food and fried food.
Increase your fluid intake and make peppermint tea part of it. Avoid carbonated beverages.
Eat more foods that are rich in fiber, such as vegetables, legumes and whole grains. Increase these slowly and in small portions and be sure to increase your fluid intake at the same time.
Have smaller meals.
The report was published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
Simple table salt ought not trouble you at mealtime. The real concern is how much salt went into processing and preparing the meal itself. (Courtesy Spectrum Health Beat)
If you’re like most people, you won’t have any trouble identifying the usual suspects. (French fries, chips and pretzels—we’re looking at you.)
The leading sources of excess sodium in the average American diet are less obvious.
Packaged foods such as bread, desserts and even canned vegetables—vegetables, for Pete’s sake!—can be prepared with alarmingly high salt levels.
That should be a cause for universal concern.
While there’s been some debate about precise levels, current guidelines call for an intake of 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day.
| The American Heart Association goes even further, recommending all American adults try to limit themselves to 1,500 milligrams per day. This is also the level recommended for people with high blood pressure and heart disease.
African Americans are also advised to stick to the lower level.
The reality? The average American eats well over twice that amount, or about 3,400 milligrams a day, and sometimes more.
“Most people don’t realize that the problem isn’t using their salt shaker, but all the foods they eat with those hidden sources,” said Caren Dobreff, RD, projects dietitian at Spectrum Health.
Such as? “Toast and cereal,” Dobreff said. “Because sodium is widely used for flavor, as a leavening agent (think baking soda), as a preservative, it turns up in places you don’t expect.” Portion sizes can add to the confusion since few people limit themselves to a single slice of bread or a half cup of cereal.
The immediate impact of too much salt can be a bloated feeling due to water retention.
“Water retention can make your socks or shoes or waistband feel snug,” Dobreff said.
Over time, too much sodium may increase the risk of high blood pressure, stroke and heart failure, as well as osteoporosis, stomach cancer, kidney disease and headaches.
The best defense: Tune up your sodium radar.
Restaurant foods contribute to about a quarter of the typical American’s dietary sodium. Meals prepared at home account for another 10 percent. Surprisingly, less than 5 percent of dietary salt is added at the table.
This means the worst offenders—about 65 percent, reports the American Heart Association—are foods we buy at the store.
Here’s how to protect yourself from sneaky salt attacks:
Read the label
Manufacturers of packaged foods must list nutritional information on the label. This includes listing sodium content.
The fine print will help you discover, for example, that 3 ounces of deli meat such as ham or turkey can contain up to 1,050 milligrams of sodium. A cup of chicken noodle soup packs 940 milligrams, a slice of American cheese has 460 milligrams and a piece of bread has 230 milligrams. That’s pretty salty.
Check chicken labels, too, especially if the package notes, “Contains broth.” Meat processors often plump the chicken by injecting it with sodium, improving moisture retention. This enhanced chicken can increase sodium content as much as 440 milligrams.
Most red meat cuts have 100 milligrams or less, but processed meat—think cold cuts, sausages and hot dogs—can have hundreds of milligrams of added salt.
Research your restaurant favorites
While it’s harder to learn what’s in your favorite restaurant foods,
most national chains have nutrition details on their websites.
A little digging before you get there will help you discover that a slice of pizza at your local shop may well have 760 milligrams of sodium, while a cheeseburger has a whopping 1,690 milligrams. At some fast food joints, just 3 ounces of breaded chicken strips contain 900 milligrams of sodium.
And don’t be fooled when restaurants label something low- or reduced-sodium. Reduced-sodium soy sauce, for example, can still have as much as 500 milligrams per serving.
Cook from scratch
Cooking from scratch offers the most control over how much salt winds
up on your plate. A tomato, for example, contains a mere 6 milligrams
of sodium. But half a cup of canned low-sodium diced tomatoes has
already more than tripled to 20 milligrams.
A helping of regular canned tomatoes is 10 times saltier, at 220 milligrams.
“Look for ways to create flavor explosions,” Dobreff said. She recommends high-impact seasoning like citrus, vinegar, herbs and spices, such as cumin and chili powder.
Don’t get duped
As appealing as some popular gourmet salts sound—pink Himalayan,
Hawaiian black lava, grey sea salt, kosher salt and even dusting
salt—they’re still just sodium chloride.
“Some people like to experiment with them for flavor and some are prepared more naturally,” Dobreff said. “But the sodium is roughly the same.”
Plan a counterattack
When you’ve got a major salt craving, play nutritional offense. Keep
whole fresh fruits and vegetables and unsalted roasted nuts and seeds on
hand. We tend to snack on what we can see and what our arms can reach.
“Buy a lower-sodium type of pretzels or chips, for example, and count out the amount of a single serving,” Dobreff said. “Then enjoy them. But be careful to balance them out with foods that day that are high in potassium, such as bananas, citrus fruits, papayas, avocados or potatoes.”
