One quite prevalent mineral in the body, chloride, makes up about 0.15% of your total body weight and is located mostly in the fluid that surrounds the cells. The main function of chloride is to help keep the body's electrolyte's in balance as well as maintain proper fluid levels.

As you may have noticed after eating a meal very high in salt the day before, a heavy consumption of chloride in the diet will cause water retention and thus the scale will increase.

This mineral also plays a key role as part of the digestive juices therefore helping to break down the food you eat so that the nutrients can be delivered to the place they need to go.

The common food sources that you eat that are high in this mineral include straight table salt (which is the most concentrated source) as well as vegetables such as seaweed, tomatoes, lettuce, celery and olives. Any canned foods are likely to have high content levels as well as are condiments such as soy sauce, sweet and sour sauce, teriyaki sauce and barbeque sauce. For this reason it's important to check the ingredient listing on the labels of the food products you consume to ensure you do not start eating an overabundance of this mineral.

If you have to little of this mineral in the body, you may suffer from dizziness, light headedness or feelings of weakness. Too much however can be even more problematic and can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease or stroke.